And hey, maybe your new friends there will help ya! Haha, fat chance!
Anyways, if any of you were worried in the slightest that our universe gets cancelled on December 21st of this year, then you can rest easy with the knowledge that the end of days isn’t on its way. Sorry to ruin it for you.
So here’s the thing with all these Mayan folks. Despite all the human sacrifices and thinking the Spanish were friendly, these guys were actually pretty smart! Like really smart. They tracked all kinds of celestial events and even have some amazingly long calendars. And it’s that calendar issue that’s getting people all worked up. Well, not you guys, but others I’m sure. See, the Mayans liked numbers… 13 and 20 to be exact. They were like holy numbers. So, we see that a LOT in the structure of their timekeeping. Here’s how it goes; a day is 1. Duh! Then it counts up to 20 days. 13 sets of 20 becomes 260 days (used for ceremonies)! Then there’s 360 (a year). Then 7,200 days of the Ka’tun (20 years). Which goes to 144,000 days (20 Ka’tuns), called a Bak’tun (400 mayan years). December of 2012 marks the completion of the 13th Bak’tun, which isn’t cause for alarm, but mass celebration! It would have been something to look forward to! And 13 is a lucky number!
Well there you have it! The end! Calender done and all life ends right? Well… no. We’re just a little over half way there. 20 Bak’tuns will make up the Pik’tun, 2,880,000 days. 20 Pik’tuns is a Kalabtun. 20 of those is a K’inchiltun and 20 of those is the mother of all long counts, the Alautun. Which, of course, is a lotta tons of days! 23,040,000,000 days… that’s a bit over 63 million of our years… it’s a long time.
Oh, and no worries about the calendar just ending, they found a cave with some of the writings so we got an extension to that calendar by another few thousand years. Good times huh? But uh, we probably would be freaking out about this if some less than savory conquerors hadn’t burned all the texts in the first place. Just saying… never a good idea. >\
well i dont know if this is true but on that day there is supposed to be a “galatic eclipse” now that i think of it that info might be a little shceky either way im buying ecpise glasses
ok so but can i see this “aligment” i live 30min from the califoria coast near san fransico
not going to be able to “see it”, rather, rest assured that it is happening and it is cool. >D
still… good reason to throw a part…
yup! the mayan calendar actually lines up with quite a few things… like I said… very smart people…
well… technically the solar system does a little weeble wobble deally, so what happens is that sometimes we pass directly in the line of sight to make a perfect alignment towards the center. this happens once every 26,000 years! well… technically the perfect alignment happened in 1998, but it takes around 36 years to precede from one side to the other… kind of like a solar eclipse but much slower. so in a way, the fun part’s already done and gone… but ya know, you could always freeze yourself to see it again!
also, there’s the solar transit of venus happening on june 6th (last time in this century!)
Speaking of such things, there will be a solar eclipse on Sunday May 20th this year (2 days!). I know it will be viewable in the southwestern US, but I’m not too sure about elsewhere.
ah crud… think I missed it! but I’m on SE side so maybe I’m out of the range anyways…
Totally agree! Its funny to see how many people can convince themselves that because this specific calender ends on that date, that it must mean time ceases to exist beyond that. When in reality the reason there is no 14th Bak’tun written down, is because the spanish killed them all before they wrote down thier calender properly! :P
I did see another predictive calender a few years ago, it was based on an ancient chinese algorithm that produced a line graph. If they changed the Y axis to years, it seemed that trophs and rises in the curves lined up with certain historic events, such as World war 2, the renaissance, discovery of america, fall of the holy roman empire etc. But what they found is that around about august or september this year, the curve ran out. They suggested that this would mean time would end!
However i personally think it will probably be time travel, as after the point that time travel to the past and future is discovered and used, linear time will no longer have any meaning.
Wow, that was a long post. Sorry!
yeah, that’s the i’ching thig I think… something like that. haven’t read up on it but lots of stuff say the world ends this december. don’t believe any of it, but it’s nice to see how creative people can get with things.
psh… linear time is for chumps!
I’m going to have a party! Also I’ll see if I can get aliens to come here with no possibility of being blown off as a hoax.
well… start sending out the invitations! Kegger Party On Planet Earth!!! Be there or be a blorgon!!
All these Tuns make my head go owwie.. thanks though, nice to know mayans decided the sun will explode in 63m years. We’ve plenty of time to build us a giant suntan lotion dispenser
lol! well… 4.5 billion years from now, but I’m surprised to wake up every day and find the world not torn apart by spontaneous war. and they wonder why aliens never visit us…
I’ll be reading the comic you put up that day mocking all the people who thought the world would end (I know that will be the comic because it’s the safe bet, if the world ends not much to worry about anymore, right?).
damn! sometimes I think you know me too well…