Have we technically already survived 2012 (as in the presumed end of world bit)?

[Whack-a-Mole]

I saw this: http://i.imgur.com/0F2Gq.png

Wondered if the logic in that actually works.

If you cannot view the image it says:

There have been approximately 514 leap years since the concept was instituted by Caesar in 45BC. Without the extra day every four years today would be July 28, 2013.

Also, the Mayan calendar did not account for leap year, so technically, the world should have ended 7 months ago.

(note not sure when that was originally posted so do not get too hung up on the July 28, 2013 date)

I presume most here are aware of the apocalypse that some say is predicted by the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar which ends in December of this year.

I will also assume we do not need to debunk the apocalypse stuff here. Just curious if any whacko spouts end of world stuff based on this I can rightfully tell them the date actually already came and went and they missed it.

[Christopher Robin Davies]

I do not know about the Mayans' calendar so I will not talk about that but the reason we have leap years as we do in the Gregorian calendar is that the time it takes he earth to orbit around the sun is slightly more than 365 days. You could just as well say that if we did insert leap days periodically the "actual" date would be before the calendar date.

[dolphinboy]

nm

[Simplicio]

I don't think the Mayan long count uses solar years.

[Lumpy]

I thought I read that the date given in the Mayan calander corresponds to sometime in December of this year. Not that it means anything- everyone knows the world will end in 2030.

[kanicbird]

I thought that their calendar was much more accurate then ours far accounting for leap days equating to what we know about our calendar today.

[Half Man Half Wit]

This is accounted for, since the long count and Gregorian calenders are compared using Julian dates, which essentially just counts days.

[Chessic Sense]

First, as has been stated, the Mayans didn't say "Dec, 2012". They said "this many days from now." People then counted that many days out and arrived at our current doomsday date.

Second, I really hate it when people act like leap days are illegitimate. They're an error-correcting measure, not an error-inducing one.

[TimeWinder]

Originally Posted by kanicbird

I thought that their calendar was much more accurate then ours far accounting for leap days equating to what we know about our calendar today.

As a general rule, take any bit of "common knowledge" that the "ancients" knew some field of science "better than we do today" with a huge grain of salt.

Aside from stuff like day-to-day knowlege of their own, now-extinct cultures, I can't think of a single case where that's actually true, even though it's a common trope.

[Wheelz]

Also, the Mayan calendar did not account for leap year, so technically, the world should have ended 7 months ago.

The world did end 7 months ago. Turns out the afterlife is an incredibly mundane re-creation of life on Earth, so most of us just didn't notice.

[Senegoid]

Originally Posted by TimeWinder

As a general rule, take any bit of "common knowledge" that the "ancients" knew some field of science "better than we do today" with a huge grain of salt.

What the ancient Mayans knew was sales and marketing technique.

That graven stone calendar was designed to end after a limited period of time as a deliberate act of planned obsolescence, so that everybody (well, all the priests anyway) would have to run out and buy new ones every so often.

At least their calendars lasted many many earth-years at a time, as opposed to the ones that we supposedly "advanced" civilisations use, which usually only last a year at a time. This was due to the relatively higher production cost of hand-carving each calendar on a slab of stone, in contrast to our "advanced" sales and marketing technique of making things more and more obsolescent after shorter and shorter periods of time.

[bouv]

You know, at first I was all dismissive of this whole "end of the world in December!" thing...I mean, big whoop-de-do, right?

Then I saw this.

Yeah, we're doomed.

[Trinopus]

Originally Posted by Chessic Sense

. . . I really hate it when people act like leap days are illegitimate. They're an error-correcting measure, not an error-inducing one.

I remember poor Harold Camping, in his end-of-the-world calculations. He (properly) took leap days into account...and any number of people calling in to his radio talk show chastised him for it. They also thought he blundered by accepting the missing days involved in the conversion from Julian to Gregorian calendars.

He was wrong....but not in that way!

[XT]

I think the OP has already been answered, so:

Originally Posted by kanicbird

I thought that their calendar was much more accurate then ours far accounting for leap days equating to what we know about our calendar today.

There is a guy on the History Channel on a show called Ancient Aliens (not sure of what his name is, but he's the guy with wild hair and crazy, googly eyes ) that says something like (to paraphrase): The Mayan calendar was nearly as accurate as a modern day atomic clock! (it's hilarious if you haven't seen the show).

It's total bullshit. Neither their calendar nor their astronomy is within light years of modern standards (not even 'modern' as in the last few centuries). Their calendar was superior to some other, earlier civilizations (IIRC, the Arabic calendar was as accurate, however, as was their astronomy), but it's a ridiculous claim if you really think about it.

Makes a great saying though, and a really hilarious sound bite on a show like Ancient Aliens.

-XT

[Hail Ants]

According to this Cracked.com article the whole 'end-of-the-world' thing was never even believed by the Mayans. It was just the end of a long cycle with a new one starting after it.

As far as the accuracy of any predictions of 'the wise ole timey peoples' remember that they also held down innocents and hacked out their beating hearts because, ah, um, er, ya know, they had to! Kinda makes you understand why the Catholic Spaniards forceably ended such practices and destroyed all their texts...

[andylonger]

Originally Posted by Whack-a-Mole

I saw this: http://i.imgur.com/0F2Gq.png

Wondered if the logic in that actually works.

If you cannot view the image it says:


(note not sure when that was originally posted so do not get too hung up on the July 28, 2013 date)

I presume most here are aware of the apocalypse that some say is predicted by the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar which ends in December of this year.

I will also assume we do not need to debunk the apocalypse stuff here. Just curious if any whacko spouts end of world stuff based on this I can rightfully tell them the date actually already came and went and they missed it.

The mayan calender is still one of the most accurate calendars EVER. right up there with the atomic clock. on december 21st there will be a once in 26,000 year alignment with the earth, sun, and the center of the milky way( a starless, empty, one light year across space) The mayan calendar says a year = 365.2422 days and the atomic calendar says it = 365.2420 days.But the atomic clock keepers admit that in the fourth decimal it is plus or minus 4... So yes, they accounted for leap year!

[andylonger]

The mayan calender is still one of the most accurate calendars EVER. right up there with the atomic clock. on december 21st there will be a once in 26,000 year alignment with the earth, sun, and the center of the milky way( a starless, empty, one light year across space) The mayan calendar says a year = 365.2422 days and the atomic calendar says it = 365.2420 days.But the atomic clock keepers admit that in the fourth decimal it is plus or minus 4... So yes, they accounted for leap year!
You guys should watch Ancient Aliens (Season 4 Episode 2 specifically)!

[Derleth]

Originally Posted by andylonger

The mayan calender is still one of the most accurate calendars EVER. right up there with the atomic clock.

This is so wrong it's punching holes in my brain to try and make me dumb enough to accept it.

A calendar is a notation system. It's ultimately just marks on stone or paper or a screen. It cannot possibly be compared to an atomic clock, which is an actual mechanism, in any way that makes any sense. You might as well say "Banana banana banana coconut bream on my thighs fig newton."

[Indistinguishable]

Yes, that was my mental response too. Although, on reflection, there is a sense in which a calendar system can run slow or fast, and thus be judged for accuracy: presumably, the months within it are supposed to correspond to seasons in a way that doesn't drift all around the place (and, depending on the design, there may also be claims implicit in the calendar system about lunar periods, etc.). But it's not really a matter of accurate metronoming, like an atomic clock; more a matter of accurate astronomy (and translating the inconvenient bits of that astronomy [e.g., the non-integer year/day duration ratio] into a convenient enough notation system).

[smithsb]

There is a "new" Mayan calendar that goes out to 3500 so forget 2012. Of course, that's beyond when the intergalactic highway comes through making the whole issue moot.

[aruvqan]

Originally Posted by TimeWinder

As a general rule, take any bit of "common knowledge" that the "ancients" knew some field of science "better than we do today" with a huge grain of salt.

Aside from stuff like day-to-day knowlege of their own, now-extinct cultures, I can't think of a single case where that's actually true, even though it's a common trope.

Hm, I think that there were natural philosophers who have a better handle on alchemy than we do now.

[Johnny L.A.]

I have to share this.

[gazpacho]

The purpose of our current calendar is to keep the days of the year in the same season every year. Without a even number of days in the solar year and a desire to keep track of time using the day night cycle leap days need to be added.

The Maya did not feel the need to match their calendar to the seasons. Their calendar just counts days. It does not really concern itself with solar years and thus does not need leap days.

[Colophon]

Originally Posted by aruvqan

Hm, I think that there were natural philosophers who have a better handle on alchemy than we do now.

And don't forget that back when we all ate mouldy vegetables and rotten meat instead of all this processed food, and nobody took drugs made by the evil pharmaceutical companies, hardly anybody died of cancer!

(Because they mostly died of dysentery and malnutrition, or from diseases that are now easily treatable, before the cancer had a chance to take hold, but we'll leave that part out.)

[Esox Lucius]

Originally Posted by Hail Ants

As far as the accuracy of any predictions of 'the wise ole timey peoples' remember that they also held down innocents and hacked out their beating hearts because, ah, um, er, ya know, they had to!

I'm tempted to tell Mayan doomsdayers that they can avoid the apocalypse by doing what the Mayans did--sacrifice a virgin daughter--if there weren't the chance of them taking it seriously.

[Roadfood]

Originally Posted by andylonger

The mayan calender is still one of the most accurate calendars EVER. right up there with the atomic clock. on december 21st there will be a once in 26,000 year alignment with the earth, sun, and the center of the milky way( a starless, empty, one light year across space) The mayan calendar says a year = 365.2422 days and the atomic calendar says it = 365.2420 days.But the atomic clock keepers admit that in the fourth decimal it is plus or minus 4... So yes, they accounted for leap year!
You guys should watch Ancient Aliens (Season 4 Episode 2 specifically)!

I'm assuming that, since you added that part about the "Ancient Aliens" show, this was meant to be sarcasm. Nevertheless, in the spirit of fighting ignorance:

This page seems to be a pretty detailed explanation of the various Mayan calendars. None of them account for leap year. The Haab is 365 days, and the Tzolkin is 260 days. And as has been already stated here, the long count calendar isn't cyclical, it's just a straight count of days, so the length of the year isn't even relevant.

[chorpler]

All you people dissin' the Mayan calendar just need to remember the following:

[T]he Mayans ... construct[ed] ... a calendar so advanced that it can still,
to this very day, tell you where various celestial bodies such as Venus
and the Moon will be at any given moment. They will be out in space,
states the miraculous Mayan calendar.

-- Dave Barry Slept Here, p. 5

So, you know, take THAT!

[Who_me?]

The newest Mayan calendar find will take us 7,000 more years to reach the end.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...y-7734566.html

[Clothahump]

I think this just about says it all.

[Vryus]

The Mayans had several different types of calendars and none of them were necessarily synchronized. The Mayans most likely did not create the calendars they were using at first and more than likely inherited them from previous cultures.

The calendars that the Mayans used were fairly accurate for the time when they were created. Their calendar is nowhere near as accurate as the Julian or Gregorian calendars. The Mayan calendars averaged one day of error for every four years. Julian calendars had one day of error every hundred-or-so years.

The calculations that supposedly determined the date of December 2012 might have taken into account Gregorian leap years but they more than likely did not include the error-days in the Mayan calendar or other events such as the Calendar Act of 1750 where a few months were just ‘skipped’.

It should also be noted that the ‘end of the Mayan calendar’ is not defined by the creators as being a cataclysmic event. It is just the end of a cycle. It is basically like New Year’s Day. People who are talking about cosmic alignments and whatnot fail to tell their believers that cosmic alignments of one sort or another are actually not so uncommon as to be seen as miracles. They can happen several times in a person’s life or yearly depending on what you’re looking at. Most people alive today have been though a ‘cosmic alignment’.

Anyone attaching some apocalyptic significance to December of 2012 will fall by the wayside just like the dozens or hundreds of others who previously predicted the end of the world. The world will not end, spaceships will not descend and the reptilians will remain in the hollow center of the Earth. Nothing to see here.

[Greg Charles]

Originally Posted by Hail Ants

As far as the accuracy of any predictions of 'the wise ole timey peoples' remember that they also held down innocents and hacked out their beating hearts because, ah, um, er, ya know, they had to! Kinda makes you understand why the Catholic Spaniards forceably ended such practices and destroyed all their texts...

You're hand waving over one of the most brutal pogroms in the history of the world. How were the potential sacrifice victims better off by being massacred by the Spaniards? In any case destroying their records was just pure xenophobia, and robbed anthropologists of a rich treasure trove that they'll never recover.

[vd]

Originally Posted by andylonger

You guys should watch Ancient Aliens (Season 4 Episode 2 specifically)!

Even better: Stargate-SG1 (Season 3 Episode 21)!