The Most Powerful Force on Earth

After another exquisite Neiman Marcus cookie I as down to enjoy a movie with my family.  My sister has was is likely the largest TV I will ever sit near in my life.  So we don't usually pick movies that have a lot of content, especially after gorging ourselves on cookies.  Our choice was 2012.  My expectations were low to say the least, and I usually am pleasantly surprised in these situations.  I was blown away.

What I saw taught me about the most powerful force in the universe.  I'm not talking about gravity, electromagnetic forces, weak force, or even strong force.  This is something that all of my engineering classes neglected to mention.  No, you sappy girl, it isn't love.  Fill my gas tank with love if you like that answer, cretin.

The most powerful force on earth is, of course, stupidity.  I was amazed in the film how Hollywood so eloquently forgot all their classes from their mandatory elementary education.  I'm not just talking about cars that never break down and planes that can fly from a dead stop.  They ignored geology that my 6 year old niece knows about.

In 2012, the year the Mayan calendar ends, the Earth's core melts and the entire crust of the earth collapses into the earth, in a spew of lava and great fissures.  But wait, isn't the earth's core already a liquid?  Oh that's right, in 3rd grade they teach us that the outer core of the earth is a liquid.  Even wikipedia knows that.  Well maybe they meant the mantle melted.  Oh right, the mantle is a plastic LAVA material.  It's pretty much an extremely viscous liquid as well.  Although it's considered a science project in elementary school, I'd say it's common knowledge that lava flows out of volcanoes.  Perhaps they meant the inner core, which is in fact a solid.  Well since it's already the hottest place on Earth it might be tough to get warmer.  The reason that it is a solid is because of the enormous pressure from the 760 miles of rock on top it.  Any temperature increase would have to come externally, causing the crust to burst into flames.  (Yes, that would be like the sun)  That darn crust is so cursedly flammable in comparison to the core.  So I'm guessing the filmmakers reduced the pressure by shooting off parts of the crust into space.  The last part wasn't shown in the film.

Pictures like this can be hard to interpret for screen writers.  

So far we've assumed that the earth's core become liquid, like it already is, and the crust sank into it.  Genius.

But wait, in 2012 the ocean doesn't sit on the earth's crust and therefore doesn't fall into the "core".  As the crust sinks into the liquid core it causes tsunami.  Please recall the 2004 tsunami in India.  The horrific tsunami was indeed caused by seismic event.  However, the wave was not even noticed in the deep sea.  The reason is because the earth rising slows the wave and pushes the amplitude higher.

Like this.

No earth, but we still see enormous waves consuming ships in the open sea.  But then again, the ocean is magically floating, so perhaps we can also dismiss the laws of physics in this case.

The real kicker is when a character acknowledges the supreme intellect of the Mayans because they predicted the end of the world and our culture couldn't with all our great science.  While I'll have to wait a year to learn whether or not this is actually true (gasp, what suspense!), there is a lingering question.  If the Mayans were so omniscient why didn't their calendar end in 1697, when the Spanish conquistadors finally subjected them to their rule.  We're assuming they knew when the world ended, but couldn't foresee the demise of their own population?  Seems like foreign empires enslaving your people ranks up their on important stuff to know.  

The real power of idiocy is was revealed in 2009 when the film grossed 769 MILLION world wide and only cost 200 million to make.  The makers certainly relate well to their demographic.  I could certainly fill my tank with 569 million.

Indeed