In The Core, the Hollywood flick set to hit theaters March 28, the center of the Earth malfunctions and the world becomes a powder keg, ripe for terrible natural disasters.

The premise might sound like Hollywood hogwash, except for one thing: According to geophysicist Dr. J. Marvin Herndon, this very disaster is inevitable.

See a preview of the action-packed movie, and hear Herndon's groundbreaking thoughts regarding the state of the Earth, tonight on "Tech Live."

Critical core could die

Herndon, who laid out his theory in Discover Magazine in 2002, believes the premise of "The Core" is more science than fiction.

He says the center of the Earth is essentially a gigantic, natural nuclear reactor that could, at any time, suddenly stop working. The magazine and other geologists called Herndon's theory revolutionary and, if true, the biggest breakthrough in the study of geophysics since the discovery of plate tectonics.

Herndon, considered a maverick geophysicist, is releasing his latest findings on this phenomenon just as "The Core" comes to audiences.

"Sometime in the future -- we don't know whether it's a hundred years from now, or a million, or a billion from now -- the nuclear reactor will die and the geomagnetic field will no longer have a power source, and it too will die," Herndon says. "Life on Earth will never be the same."

Herndon cites his latest paper, which he says contains "very strong evidence that there is a nuclear reactor at the center of the Earth."

'Terranauts' must save the Earth

In "The Core" that reactor dies out. It's up to a team of superscientists to travel to the center of the Earth and detonate a device that will reactivate the core. Meanwhile, the Earth's atmosphere is going haywire, so it's up to these "terranauts" to save the human race.

What does Herndon think of Hollywood's take on his theory?

"What I realized is, these people are interested in putting science back in science fiction," Herndon says. "And what surprised me with both the director and producer is a good solid attitude about science.... There should be a debate, and new ideas should be talked about. And, by golly, this is a better attitude than a lot of scientists I know!"

Dr. Fred Vine laid the foundations for many of Herndon's theories in the 1970s. Vine, however, believes that the Earth's core stops spinning every 400,000 years. These stops have been occurring since the dawn of time, and will continue to occur, he says. Only the core doesn't melt down like a malfunctioning nuclear reactor, but rather reverses course and spins in the opposite direction.

Movie's magnetic attraction?

Most scientists believe the Earth's core is made of nickel and iron, not of a radioactive soup around a reactor. Under the standard nickel-iron theory, the radioactivity is spread throughout the core and acts as a supplemental source of heat.

Scientists have long believed that the Earth's magnetic field changes quite often -- about every 250,000 years. If one of these changes were to occur during our lifetime, the results would be tremendous, scientists say.

Not all scientists agree with Herndon's theories, but he has supporters who think the scientific community should listen up.

So will moviegoers go to "The Core" to get their science kicks? Herndon thinks they will.

"The whole subject has been ignored for the past 20 to 30 years to a great extent, and there are breaking discoveries being made about a nuclear reactor at the center of the Earth," Herndon says. "Young people will particularly be interested in learning about [the discoveries]."