Well, let's look at this. Someone predicts the end of the world in some window
of time. Without loss of generality, I shall assume the following things:
(1) Predictions in the Bible are true. I mean, it's just no fun to make
Biblical predictions if you're not going to believe the book, is it?
(2) We don't need time resolution finer than hours and days.
(3) No woman is going to know the day or hour, either. Let's keep our
proofs tidy and elegant.
(4) Someone makes a prediction that the world will end in some week --
let's just call it between Monday and Friday.
Okay, let's start. The world can't end on Friday. The reason is that if it were
to end on Friday, we'd *know* it once it got to 23:00 Thursday. There's always
the chance that it's going to happen that hour, but then we'd know the hour and
day, so it can't happen then.
Which means that it must happen either sometime Monday through Thursday.
Well, it can't happen Thursday, either. Once it gets to 23:00 Wednesday, we
know it's going to happen Thursday.
Similarly, it can't happen Wednesday or Tuesday.
So it's gotta happen Monday. But it can't happen then, either for the trivial
reason that it violates the prediction that the time won't be known.
So, whenever the world ends, it's *not* going to happen during the time
predicted. It's going to happen some other time.
Well, I have a prediction to make:
The world will end sometime between now and 23 November, 2323. I have 23
reasons why, too, if you're really interested. If you're *really* really
interested, you'll send me a small, freely-given, contribution. Oh, say about
$23.
Sleep easy tonight,
Jurgen Mordaxus macEglantine duVin,
Archbishop, Our Lady of Differential Equations
