2012?

It probably means that we have to extinguish all fires and wait for the priests to sacrifice the roayal victim, kindle a fire in the chest cavity and then send the torches lit for that fire throughout the realm. That is what the Aztec/Nahuatls did when the solar and lunar cycles aligned every 52 years or something.
 
And as 2012 gets closer, expect y2K level idiocy.
And just to make things better, Roland Emmerich, who gave us "Day After Tommorow" and "10000 BC" is making a film about catastrophe overtaking the world in 2012. that is all we need to get the hysteria going.

If you want to despair of the basic intelligence of the Human Race:
This is the IMDB page for the 2012 movie.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1190080/board
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I see the Internet is only serving as a new way for kooks to operate.
 
Originally Posted by dudalb View Post
And as 2012 gets closer, expect y2K level idiocy
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Pantaz said:
Y2k hysteria at least had SOME basis in reality (two digit year in computer code).
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The likely hysteria aside, for the moment, the ancient Maya calendar calculates an end date as follows:
"The day will be 4 Ahau 3 Kankin, and it will be ruled by the Sun God, the ninth Lord of the Night. The moon will be eight days old, and it will be the third lunation in a series of six..."
In the ancient Maya calendar the 'day' in question corresponded to 23 December 2012 AD, and apparently agrees with the end date of the current precessional motion.
 
The Mayan calender was divided into periods or Katoons as I belive its pronounced and spelled. 2012 is the end of their 13th Katoon. I do not believe it to be "the end of the world" but what about "The end of the world as we know it"?

Personaly, I believe a change of some sort will come upon humanity. A change of some sort. It could be somewhat "insignificant" or it could be "big".

But don't get all worried and panicky. Life is too short.


This is my stand on the subject.
 
2012 is a year like other. Something big might happen, maybe not. But it is entirely uncorrelated to the end of the Mayan calendar Katoon or whatever their spelling was (ETA : and entirely unforeseeable). Just like the switch from 999 to 1000 and from 1999 to 2000 (or 2000 to 2001) did not show any special event except the foolishness of men into looking at numbers.
 
Jon_Stripe said:
The Mayan calender was divided into periods or Katoons as I belive its pronounced and spelled. 2012 is the end of their 13th Katoon. I do not believe it to be "the end of the world" but what about "The end of the world as we know it"?

Personaly, I believe a change of some sort will come upon humanity. A change of some sort. It could be somewhat "insignificant" or it could be "big".

But don't get all worried and panicky. Life is too short.


This is my stand on the subject.
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Never heard it pronounced, but it's usually spelled Katun. It's just one of the many Mayan calendrical cycles, like the Western calender's centuries and millennia. They had much larger cycles, ones that took their calender up to millions of years, so they clearly didn't think that the 13th Katun marked The End.
And humanity changes every day, every minute, every second....
What you call "changes" is unlikely to be seen as significant - or even noticed - by more than a very small proportion of the world's population.
 
Thanks for the correct spelling. People get on me about that.

True, but some changes are bigger than others. Remember, the Maya were not stupid. Look at their architecture, their knowledge of astrology and physics. They had reason for their actions. Maybe not ones Westerners would agree with but still.
 
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RSLancastr said:
Amulus, ask your coworker to sign a legal document giving you all of his money, property and possessions as of January 1st, 2013.
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That should do it!

Reminds me of a wry observation I saw once, that nobody believes in holistic muffler repair; we know scams when we see one, so why do we fall for them in other, vital areas?
 
The Mayans are still around, though they wear jeans, drive pickups, and haven't AFAIK indulged in any ritual sacrifice lately. I haven't seen anything indicating they're fretting over their calendar rolling over.

The rest is a mismash of astronomical misunderstandings and misrepresentations. There's nothing to the whole 2012 hysteria. And it certainly has been talked over before.
 
I don't get why people think the Mayans are so significant either. They were an ancient, relatively advanced people with knowledge of astronomy and their calendar ended in 2012. Er... so?

I just don't get it. Honestly. I mean, even if they did think the world would end in 2012, this makes them no different than all the other nutcases who predicted apocalypse at a certain date. Boggles the mind.
 
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maatorc said:
The best way to get a take on it is to read the 'precession' literature.
It seems a particular star group is a space-time marker for Earth based observation of the limit of the precessional swing of about 25920 years.
"Hamlet's Mill" - ISBN 0-87923-215-3 discusses it in some detail.
The ancients seemed to know about, on which you may find "Homer's Secret Iliad" ISBN 0-7195-5780-1 of interest.
Astronomical science is very familiar with it.
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"Hamlet's Mill" proposes the theory that very ancient people knew about the Earth's precession. Even if I completely accept the theory that Mayans discovered rotational precession 26000 years ago and therefore the coming alignment in 2012 marks an anniversary of that discovery (i.e. the alignment with that particular star group has not occurred for 26000 years), I am still left with the question: so what? An alignment with that star group will not affect anything on Earth or in our solar system - it is just an alignment.

There are many 'views' on its relevance, significance, and value: Take your pick.
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You still haven't demonstrated any relevance, significance, or value beyond the obvious claim that this particular alignment has not occurred for 26000 years.
 
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maatorc said:
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The likely hysteria aside, for the moment, the ancient Maya calendar calculates an end date as follows:
"The day will be 4 Ahau 3 Kankin, and it will be ruled by the Sun God, the ninth Lord of the Night. The moon will be eight days old, and it will be the third lunation in a series of six..."
In the ancient Maya calendar the 'day' in question corresponded to 23 December 2012 AD, and apparently agrees with the end date of the current precessional motion.
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You keep saying "end date" but it is not an end date. The amount of precession in 2011, 2012, and 2013 will be the same. The precession will continue well beyond 2012. From an astrometrical point of view, nothing is ending.
 
Sunstealer said:
I then told them that because the calendar didn't have Jan 1st 2009 on it then the world would end on 31st Dec 2008. The point was made.
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This is a cunning tactic, but before trying it it would be worth checking that your calendar doesn't continue through to January 2009 - quite a lot of them do ;)

Amulus said:
I find it farely easy to see now that the 2012 is not backed up by much scientific fact.
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Don't you think that there might have been a bit more hoo-ha in the newspapers if we only had four years to go? And I don't just mean a couple of paragraphs buried on page 13 next to the articles about a new type of cat litter, I mean front page
NY Times said:
We're Doomed
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kind of thing.
 
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Jon_Stripe said:
Thanks for the correct spelling. People get on me about that.

True, but some changes are bigger than others. Remember, the Maya were not stupid. Look at their architecture, their knowledge of astrology and physics. They had reason for their actions. Maybe not ones Westerners would agree with but still.
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Like sts60, says, the Mayans are still around. They undoubtedly think it's a hoot that all these crazy Westerners think they're such a wise and spiritual people - especially when those Westerners are rushing to spend their money on anything "Mayan".
There are lots of other ancient and spiritually knowledgeable races still around as well - Chinese and Native Americans (very popular as founts of ancient wisdom amongst New Agers and spiritualists on the 60s & 70s), Australian aboriginals (still regarded as highly spiritual amongst a certain type of US NuAger who has never been to Australia), all those Druid/Celt dudes (we're supposed to have worshipped pumpkins in pre-Roman times, if you believe some US NuAge writers).
Once 2012 has passed and the world has clearly not not changed, the Armageddonists and NuAgers will latch onto some other "ancient" race to exploit.
 
Is it just me or does anyone else immediately think of the Rush album 2112 when they see the number 2012. A moment of joy then bitter disappointment.
 
maatorc said:
The interest about 2012 is that it is thought to be the year ending a precessional cycle incorporating an alignment of the Earth to the galaxy centre through a particular star group. There is an extensive literature on the subject. Expect to see much written and television discussion of it between now and the end of 2012.
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Every year ends in a precessional cycle incorporating an alignment of the earth to the galactical centre through a particular star group. All you need is to pick the right particular star group.

Hans :dio:
 
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