May262009
Dartmouth prof debunks “2012″ silliness
Filed under Space / astronomy by david brooks at 9:31 am
One of many "2012" books
Thanks to a piece in Salon titled “Why the 2012 cult is a silly scam,” I found this research by Dartmouth geography professor Vincent Malstrom titled “The Astronomical Insignificance of Maya Date 13.0.0.0″ (PDF here) which shows how ridiculous the whole thing is. It’s fun to read; Malstrom (whose name has an umlat on the o, but I don’t know how to type that) doesn’t bother holding back about how moronic the New Age-y scam is.
If you’re baffled, here’s a quick synopsis (or Google “2012″ and wade through more New Age lunacy than you can shake a Dream Catcher at): The Mayans, who flourished in the Yucatan / Guatemala area betgween about 300 and 900 A.D., used a variety of calendars based on lunar and solar events (as did every other society that ever existed) - one of them is the Long Count Calendar, a base-20 calendar that sort of combined solar (365-day) and ceremonial (260-day) annual calendars.
For a variety of complicated reasons (wikipedia article here), the counting system “runs out” in 2012. Exactly what day this happens depends on when you think the Long Count started, which is far from certain. Exactly what this means, however, is quite certain: Nothing. It is the Mesoamerican version of Y2K.
Some goofballs and people who can spot an easy buck (see that book cover) say otherwise, of course. But then again, I guess the world would be boring if everybody was sensible.
May 27th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Wow!! I can see your knowlage on the subject is great.!! But i thank your right ! the world won't end but that dont mean that the mayan were'nt on to some thing or had an understanding about event we dont. im not sure but i do think its worth exploring or mabe im just a goofball
May 30th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
The Mayan calendar does not “run out” any more than the Gregorian calendar “runs out” every December 31. They both just begin a new cycle.
May 31st, 2009 at 5:52 am
Yes, indeedy - you wouldn't know that wandering through Google-land about the topic, though!
November 8th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Interesting post. I have made a twitter post about this. Others no doubt will like it like I did.
January 12th, 2010 at 7:00 am
Great stuff. I really like your writing style.