Complex Numbers

It's All Over, I Tell You

As most of you know, I'm fond of predicting the End of It All here. What can I say; it's fun. Recently, someone posted a poll on Failbook: "Should there be a national holiday in honor of Michael Jackson?"

The very existence of that poll means it's all over, I tell you.

But of course, apocalyptic fantasies are just that: fantasies. Harmless. The world's not going to REALLY end; it's just going to change, like it always does...

Or is it going to end, after all? I mean, it's happened before:

http://www.cracked.com/article_17562_5-horrifying-apocalyptic-scenarios-that-hav...

It's impossible to turn on the news or go the movies without hearing about some disease or cataclysm that's about to end the world. There's a movie coming (2012) that as far as we can tell is about every apocalypse happening at once, and in the news the flavor of the week is swine flu--though so far the fatality rate has fallen rather short of, say, Popsicles.

"After killing 50-60 percent of Europe's population, the Justinian Plague laid low for a couple centuries, repackaged itself as the Black Death and killed a third of Europe from 1348-1350. Like your mom's cooking, the bubonic plague wouldn't stay down--it hung around until the 1600s, when improved medicine and sanitation stanched its spread. And like your mom's cooking, the Black Death gave people fatal, necrotic tumors. "

At least we'll go out laughing, right?