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2012 Mayan Calendar 'Doomsday' Date Might Be Wrong

Posted by samzenpus on from the 60-day-reprieve dept.

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."

4 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Worse by Kalidor · · Score: 2, 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 since the late eighties...

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  2. Re:Of course they're wrong by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Mayans had a Long Count calendar which was based on how many days since the day they believe creation started. They believed that this age was the fourth world and the fifth would start at the end of the Long Count. Now I'm not up to speed on the specifics but I don't think scholars have figured out what the Mayans thought would happen at the start of the fifth world. It might have been written down but the Spanish destroyed many Mayan texts labeling them as "heresy"

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  3. Re:Actually they didn't by Anonymous Coward · · 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)
    SOunds pretty apocalyptic in my book .. that will be the day they run out of internet space AND THE WHOLE INTERNET PIPES DIE!

  4. Re:Not and end by evocarti · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Transitions from one age to the next, especially in mythological terms, tend to be violent and filled with hardship.