2012 Mayan Calendar 'Doomsday' Date Might Be Wrong 144
astroengine writes "A UC Santa Barbara associate professor is disputing the accuracy of the mesoamerican 'Long Count' calendar after highlighting several astronomical flaws in a correlation factor used to synchronize the ancient Mayan calendar with our modern Gregorian calendar. If proven to be correct, Gerardo Aldana may have nudged the infamous December 21, 2012 'End of the World' date out by at least 60 days. Unfortunately, even if the apocalypse is rescheduled, doomsday theorists will unlikely take note."
Worse (Score:1)
There was news about this the year before last year. And according to somebody /else/, the estimated EOW date was off by over 4,000 years.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed, no one seems to be able to calculate this. When they first tried it came to sometime in 2013. Then it got moved to 2012 for about 15 years. Then for five it was 2013 again; but no one seemed to pay attention to that five years. Then as you said, they recalculated and found it to be off by 4,000.
I strongly get the feeling that the people who work on this to make these publication tend to ignore most of the work before them and just fail to do any sanity checks with any developments on the subject sin
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
And then there's this sort of evidence that we're more like 300 years off (or 4300)
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/volatile/Niemitz-1997.pdf [cam.ac.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
What I don't understand is, the mayan numerical system is positional (it has the equivalent of a zero); how could their calendar have an end date? Were they still alive today, they could have just added another position.
Re:Worse (Score:4, Informative)
actually, they have a circular calendar. Just that most people don't quite get the concept that once it reaches their "last" date, it just goes back to the first date and keeps going.
And the people who do get it are riddled with nutjobs that believe that a new age is upon us or something like that.
I could care less unless the heiroglyphics depict fire reaining down upon the world... they don't do they?
Re: (Score:2)
I always refer to it as the Mayan Y5K problem.
their computers(real people) couldn't calculate beyond a certain point so that became the final end date. Just like Y2K. lazy programmers cause the world to burn.
It doesn't have an end date. (Score:2)
Mayan prophecies refer to dates several thousand years farther in the future than the date at the end of the popular Mayan calendar. Basically, all that you need when the calendar rolls over is just adding another character or getting a bigger stone, and the Mayans didn't have to worry that they'd have to upgrade all their abacuses to Stone 2K compliance.
So then (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
The actual transit through the center point of the galactic elliptic will take at least a decade. With plenty of fan fair even something ridiculous can seem plausible for a brief time. Until you actually look under the hood.
Re:So then (Score:5, Funny)
Actually it is a year earlier than previously thought. December 12, 2011 is when my daughter can get her driver's license.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually it is a year earlier than previously thought. December 12, 2011 is when my daughter can get her driver's license.
Is your daughter's name 'Sarah Connor' by any chance? Because if it is, I have a preprogrammed Austrian robot to send her for her birthday which may help us avoid or delay the Apocalypse. It speaks in a weird accent, but it IS a robot.
Peak Oil Day (Score:1)
About driving a car, doomsday, and any date circa 2012 : one should mention the Peak Oil
(even if instead of a sudden apocalyptic vision we have a decades long agony of energy shortage)
Peak Whale Oil Day (Score:2)
(even if instead of a sudden apocalyptic vision we have a decades long agony of energy shortage)
Re: (Score:1)
It's all for the best, who wants doomsday during that terrible Smarch weather anyway?
It probably said... (Score:4, Funny)
Jan. 1, 2000, 00:00 GMT
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
The apocalypse already happened. (Score:2)
January 1, 1970 UTC is when the UNIX singularity happened.
Other singularities:
MS DOS - January 1, 1980
AmigaOS - January 1, 1978
Microsoft Excel - January 0, 1900 (That was a red-letter day, for sure!)
OLE automation - midnight, 30 December 1899
Win32 - January 1, 1601
We're already in a post-singularity world, folks. Nothing to fear from the Mayan calendar that we haven't faced before.
Math error plus translation problem (Score:5, Funny)
December 21, 2012 is actually the Mayan "Year of the Linux Desktop."
So enjoy your couple of months on top.
Re: (Score:1)
Repent? Who, me? (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
1) Sixty extra days.
2) ?????
3) Profit
Re: (Score:2)
Of course they're wrong (Score:2)
They predicted the end of the world, but not cell phones, breast implants or space shuttles?
Not listed in order of importance obviously...
Re:Of course they're wrong (Score:4, Informative)
They predicted the end of the world,
If by they you mean the Maya, then, no, they didn't predict the end of the world.
They had a calendar which has a cycle expire at a particular time. The assignment of the "end of the world" or similar apocalyptic significance to that cycle expiration is something that was done in the 20th Century by New Age writers.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Of course they're wrong (Score:4, Informative)
Correct.
The first half is correct. The Maya did believe that this was the fourth -- and only successful -- creation, that followed three prior, failed attempts at creation.
The second half is less correct. First, the Long Count doesn't end (or at least not in the currently-expected lifetime of the universe and several orders of magnitude more; the abbreviated expression that was all that was needed to record current dates does 'run out', similar to the Y2K problem, but the Long Count has many higher positional cycles that were used in writing future dates, and occasionally used in writing current dates in ceremonial contexts.)
Second, there is no evidence that the Maya expected the current creation to end at any particular time; and there are concrete indications (in the form of predictions of events in the current creation that did require the use of higher-order cycles) that if they did expect the current creation to end, it wasn't at the point where Long Count dates counted from the beginning of the current creation would begin to need to use the higher-order cycles that weren't conventionally used to express current dates.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure what's worse; the silliness of the EOTW Mayan BS or the fact that people are still wasting valuable bandwidth posting about it ;-0
SB
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder if banks are still running on the Mayan calendar or if they updated, last time I checked the Gregorian one was poorly implemented and was about to break, like.. 11 years ago?
I am so glad! (Score:3, Funny)
But now it turns out the date was off! Great news! Finally news anchors have a real story to report.
Old News (Score:1, Informative)
Not and end (Score:2)
Doesn't the date just mean that the calendar rolls from "age" of the Myan calendar to the next? Sure, it's the transition from one to another, but isn't it more psychological than anything? After all, other than lining many IS people's pockets, wasn't 2000 relatively uneventful?
I partied like it was 1999, and I still had to go into work the following day....
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Transitions from one age to the next, especially in mythological terms, tend to be violent and filled with hardship.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't the date just mean that the calendar rolls from "age" of the Myan calendar to the next? Sure, it's the transition from one to another, but isn't it more psychological than anything? After all, other than lining many IS people's pockets, wasn't 2000 relatively uneventful?
I partied like it was 1999, and I still had to go into work the following day....
For starters, Y2K was a big issue, though not as big as everyone made it out to be. It wasn't like there was going to be a glitch and launch every nuke, it would have been more like being unable to use your bank account for a week. The reason it was relatively uneventful was the blood sweat and tears of your IS people, and yes they did get rich off it, but not without actually working on it.
For the Ancient Mayans, this actually had signifigant effects on their culture, much like how we celebrate Christmas a
Just a unit of measurement (Score:2)
The Mayans never claimed to have predicted the end of the world... This is not majorly different than rolling over from December 31st to January 1st, except it happens less often.
In a way, the Mayans were correct. (Score:5, Funny)
In a way, the Mayans were correct. After all, whether the date is 2012 or 2013, the Maya did correctly predict that by that time the Maya would have no further need for a Mayan calendar.
Re: (Score:2)
[Citation Needed] [www.csms.ca]
Re: (Score:2)
Which means they were way ahead of certain programmers in 1975.
What about the year 0 debate? did we even start it (Score:2)
What about the year 0 debate? did we even start it on time as well it can be like 1-5 years each way off as well.
According to my calendar... (Score:1)
The world goes tits up after October 31st 2010. It's just blank after that.
Or I could just turn the page.
Insensitive clod! (Score:2)
The world goes tits up after October 31st 2010. It's just blank after that.
Or I could just turn the page.
Europe "falls back" on 31/10/2010. I've experienced enough mishaps on DST-change days to gain a healthy respect for a baktun rollover.
Not really doomsday (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
5 Billion years to go... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Nope we just miss translated 5 thousand years for 5 billion years..
it could happen to anyone the US governement does it with tax money all the time.
no big deal
Y2k38 (Score:2)
I read that trolls and wizards will crawl out of their mothers' dungeons and lay waste to the world when Linux x32 calendar expires. Let's hope the Mayans' runs out first!
No, it won't (Score:2)
Doom sayers will just sue this as an excuse to get another 60 days worth of attention.
Recalculated (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Q: If you knew out the world was going to end in a few seconds, what are you doing posting on slashdot?!
what really happened. (Score:1)
Everyone knows the real date is 2038 (Score:2)
60 days? Really (Score:3, Insightful)
2013 is a far worse doomsday scenario (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Of /course/ it might be (Score:2)
Thank god! (Score:2)
I had booked the great place for a wedding on the 23rd. I was afraid I would be hosed!
60 days? (Score:2)
Dammit!
It's going to be hard enough to keep them all virgins until the end of 2012. How am I supposed to convince them to wait longer?
As a California resident, the world will never end (Score:2)
Well...maybe this breaks at certain times of the day...
Well... (Score:1)
That sucks for these guys [2012ins.com]!
I wonder if they'll honor the policy I bought for 12-21-2012 if the disaster is pushed 60 days!
The world will end in 73 days... (Score:1)
The real answer (Score:1)
What the research is failing to recognize is that moving the date out 60 days or so prevents the end of the world date from being a base three number.
12212012 in decimal is equal to 4271, which when represented as cents is almost but not quite completely unlike the answer 42.
The answers used to be so simple (Score:2)
At least... (Score:1)
Unfortunately, even if the apocalypse is rescheduled, doomsday theorists will unlikely take note
At least not until after Dec 12, 2012
How many times do we have to see this? (Score:2)
Here's the last one I remember.
http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/26/1517242/2012-a-Miscalculation-Actual-Calendar-Ends-2220?from=rss [slashdot.org]
The end is inevitable... (Score:3, Insightful)
Me, I know the end of the world is coming shortly (Score:2)
NOOOOOOOO (Score:2)
Damn it!
Every time a time gets pushed back it's a bad thing. I just want the date to come and go so that I can point and yell I told you so!
Heck several people on another forum I visit are convinced that we are having a pole-reversal at that time. And I don't mean a magnetic pole-reversal (which is quasi-plausible) - I mean they actually think the damned planet is going to physically flip around backwards.
Re: (Score:1)
The world really started changing in many ways around the late 70's / early 80's.
Hmmm.....did anything significant happen at that time...?
More than 60 days (Score:3, Funny)
LHC (Score:1)
To know for sure, just bookmark LHC's schedule.
Re: (Score:2)
Due to be offline in 2012 for budget reasons... so doubt we can blame the LHC.
Oh no... (Score:1)
Hoorrrayyy!!! (Score:1)
Switcheroo (Score:1)
Wasn't there a previous article that says ""2012" a Miscalculation; Actual Calendar Ends 2220" http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/26/1517242/2012-a-Miscalculation-Actual-Calendar-Ends-2220 [slashdot.org]
Now it ends again!
Quick, make another movie.
Sigh (Score:2)
On a side note, Duke Nukem Forever's launch date was moved from Dec 22th 2012 by at least 60 days too.
What happened to 2220? (Score:2)
Well given that the latest /. report had the end of the Mayan calendar re-calculated to 2220 [slashdot.org] I don't know what to believe any more.
Actually they didn't (Score:5, Informative)
Actually they didn't. There is _no_ mayan prophecy for the end of the Baktun. None whatsoever. On the contrary, on their monuments you find dates up to trillions of year into the future. Dunno what was supposed to happen then, but it would make no sense to prophecise it if the world is supposed to end now.
_All_ that happens in 2012 (ok, 2013) is the end of a baktun.
Let's start from the start. The Mayans didn't count in base 10, but in base 20, presumably because they could count on their toes too. (No, really, look at their digits.) Thank goodness they didn't come up with a male-only maths, eh?
So they started with a year based on 260 day years, the so called Tzolkin calendar. If now you went "wait, that can't be right, it would skip through the actual year like crazy", congrats, you'd be smarter than the Mayans.
Then came the Long Count calendar, which was 360 days long, or 18 months of 20 days each. (Told you they were big on 20.) This is actually the calendar used in the 2012 (non)prophecy.
Yes, that's right. Those poor idiots are actually trusting a civilization to tell them about galactic alignments... who isn't even advanced enough to figure out the length of the year. Nor had the smarts to reset it to some equinoxe or such each year, like the lunisolar calendars used around here by even the most primitive ancient cultures. Yeah, that's the guy to trust with galactic calculations, right? ;)
To make it more stupid, even the Mayans eventually got a better calendar than that, the Haab calendar. Which finally padded the year to 365 days long, putting them finally on par with what the Egyptians had had, oh, only a couple of millennia before them. But anyway, a doomsday calculation based on the Long Count is already based on a calendar which is obsolete and crap even by Mayan standards.
So, anyway, a Long Count year was 18 months of 20 days each.
From there it went kinda like for us with decades, centuries and milenia, except in base 20.
So for us a decade is 10 years, for them a katun is 20 years.
For us a century is 10x10 years, for them a baktun is 20x20 years.
For us a millennium is 10x10x10 years, for them a piktun is 20x20x20 years.
All that happens in 2012 or 2013 is the end of a baktun. Yes, it's not even millennialism. The piktun (base-20 millenium) won't end for another 4000 years or so.
That scare isn't even like Y2K, it's more like being scared of the rollover from 699 AD to 700 AD. I mean, WTF, it's not even running out of digits or anything.
And again that's _all_ there is to it, because there is no actual Mayan prophecy for that date.
But I guess that won't stop the doomsday idiots from waiting for their Rapture on that day. What else is new?
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
So the real end of the universe is 2013 .... thats katun , A holy number in Mayan and 13, a cursed number in Judaeo-Christian citcles (12 apostles + 1 Jebus) .. that will be the day they run out of internet space AND THE WHOLE INTERNET PIPES DIE!
SOunds pretty apocalyptic in my book
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Add to that the fact that they couldn't predict the Spanish coming over and ending their world.
Re:Actually they didn't (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
How could they have predicted it? Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!
Re:Actually they didn't (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I find it pretty hard to believe that they could do this (I'd love to see anyone here predict an eclipse without using a computer)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=antikythera-mechanism-eclipse-olympics [scientificamerican.com]
SB
Re: (Score:2)
You may not need a computer for the calculation, but you needed a computer to find that article!
Re: (Score:2)
Some quick points:
1) Everything, everything, EVERYTHING we know about their culture is derived from a mere handful of parchments that sympathetic Spaniards managed to save from being burned. You cannot possibly substantiate "none whatsoever" because we have only a minute sliver of their knowledge to go on. That would be like looking at the summary of an article alone and declaring oneself a PhD in the matter. It happens, but isn't exactly sound reasoning.
2) There's little to no reason to believe that th
Re: (Score:1)
That would be like looking at the summary of an article alone and declaring oneself a PhD in the matter.
You must be new here... (yes, I saw your 6-digit UID). Well targeted analogy, good sir.
This is something that ticks me off every time I see it- any documentary tends to infer that ancient peoples were stupid/less intelligent then us ("oh wow, look how they made x using only y primitive tools!") Everyone needs to realize that there is no fixed measure of intelligence, and that it is relative - these ancient groups were incredibly smart - as pointed out, the mayans with their astrological knowledge, a
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, there is.
1. Basically it has no reason to. They counted base 20, and everything else about their number system is base 20. Assuming that only for this one it would have a special rule that the digit can't go above 13 is stupid. It's like saying that for Christians the century digit can't go above 7. Why?
2. And at any rate, the burden of proof is on those who claim that such a rule exists, not on those who don't. "[i]There's little to no reason to believe that the calendar wouldn't end on the solst
Re: (Score:2)
You cannot possibly substantiate "none whatsoever" because we have only a minute sliver of their knowledge to go on.
No, but you can trivially substantiate "none known whatsoever" based on the fact that there's only a minute sliver of knowledge.
Which means there's no evidence of there being such a prophecy, and the doomsday theorists are basing their theory on nothing.
2) There's little to no reason to believe that the calendar wouldn't end on the solstice. Nothing in the article seems to illustrate WHY they
Re: (Score:2)
I wish people believing things despite all evidence pointing in the opposite direction, simply because it appeals to them in some way, was "basically nothing".
Don't waste a wish. This is truly already within your power. You can decide whether or not, and to what degree, you give a damn about what other people think or say. Today, without wishing for a thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't waste a wish. This is truly already within your power. You can decide whether or not, and to what degree, you give a damn about what other people think or say. Today, without wishing for a thing.
What people think or say about the flagrantly false things they believe can affect real-world behaviors and decisions with real negative consequences, and it is clearly not within my power to "decide" that this not be so, otherwise we'd be involved in at minimum one fewer war. The Mayan Calendar Doomsday Myth
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
What a fascinating read that was! Haven't got mod points, so all I can do is say thank you. So thank you!
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that that would make the Mayan calendar less stupid.
Yes, Earth rotation slows down, so days get longer... by about 0.002 seconds per century. But:
A) that's slowing down, not accelerating. A year in the _very_ distant past had _more_ days, not less. Basically, sorry, you can't justify the Long Count 360 day year that way, much less the 260 day Tzolkin year.
B) That's at
Re: (Score:2)
You know what else the Mayans figured out? Jokes.
Yeah well I'd study their teachings a bit more before I quit my day job, if I were you.
Nope, different calendar (Score:2)
Actually, I've touched that later in that message: nope, that's a different calendar. The Haab' calendar has those 5 days. The Long Count calendar is strictly 360 days.
Re: (Score:2)
I think they should be humored and coddled and talked into signing over their worldly goods as an act of faith.
The stupid deserved to be humilitated, for profit.