# The Straight Dope on the Mayan Calendar **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951 "2008-12-19T18:31:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/101 "2008-12-26T20:15:03Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > No, iron is made inside stars during their lifetimes, through nuclear fusion. It’s just that elements heavier than iron aren’t made inside stars, so had to have been made in supernovas. But the iron gets out to where it can be included in other stars via supernovae. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/102 "2008-12-26T20:56:45Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > Wait, so if the sun is a big ball of iron, how does it burn? Iron doesn’ t undergo fusion or fission. How did the sun get so hot? How do these big balls of iron form? Where did all the iron come from? Why is it when I look at the sun through a spectrograph I don’t see any iron lines? I don’t want random links that happen to mention a few of the same words found in this paragraph, I want you to explain it. Well duh! The Troll Gods live inside the hollow iron sphere and their forges make the outside very, very hot. I thought EVERYBODY knew that! Sheesh, what DO they teach in schools these days? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/103 "2008-12-26T21:02:36Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Well duh! The Troll Gods live inside the hollow iron sphere and their forges make the outside very, very hot. I thought EVERYBODY knew that! Sheesh, what DO they teach in schools these days? Eh. Possibly the fires of Khwaj, but the only troll who knew how to use a forge was Ghwerig, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/104 "2008-12-27T14:13:20Z")
Sorry for not checking back earlier, I’ve been away… But now, to substantiate my offhand remark a little: > [@DSeid](#): > > To those who accept the quantum entanglement concept the act of checking made it false and made the other true at the same time. > > Now mind you the more I read about this the more I become less convinced that quantum entanglement as it is presently understood represents super luminal information transmission. But I’m not quite sure. Quantum entanglement is an experimentally very well established phenomenon, so I don’t really consider it a matter of belief any more; as for the impossibility of using it for communication, **Bryan Ekers** got the gist of it. A bit more formally, the [no-communication theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_communication_theorem) states that to an observer in an experiment with an entangled pair of particles, nothing the person at the other end does can affect the statistics of his observations, i.e. both the observer’s measurement and influence through entanglement will lead to indistinguishable results – consider that in manipulating one of a pair of entangled particles, you don’t have a way to determine which state it will collapse into beforehand, nor do you have a method to let the person at the other end of the line know of your result instantaneously, since that in itself would necessitate FTL communication. > [@](#): > > But **half** seems more convinced than seems justified and about how the speculated tachyons would behave as well. Well, I’m fairly convinced tachyons don’t exist at all (for any reasonable definition of the word ‘existing’), and considerations from special relativity and the desire to preserve causality lend some heft to the notion that even if they did, they couldn’t be used to transmit information at FTL speeds, but even beyond that, the Feinberg reinterpretation principle essentially says that a (negative-energy) tachyon sent back in time can always been seen as a (positive-energy) tachyon travelling forward in time, thus there can be no causality violating information transfer. > [@](#): > > Also a weird thought - at a quantum level [particles can change into other particles.](http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/phy00/phy00391.htm)So certain particles approaching say an event horizon could change into a photon and move at the speed of light and, who knows, then change into tachyons that move faster than the speed of light and travel in the other direction through time. Hypothetically. These things don’t work all that willy-nilly, even quantum processes have rules, strange as they might seem; for instance, in particle conversions (decays and the like), there are certain conservation laws that have to be obeyed, and tachyon conversion seems like it would violate energy conservation on account of tachyons having imaginary mass (which they must have to travel faster than light in the first place). ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/105 "2008-12-27T16:27:53Z")
We have less than 4 years left before the end of the world. It is time for all kinds of debauchery and loose living. It makes Hedonism a good option. ---
**Author:** ![baudrunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@baudrunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baudrunner)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/106 "2008-12-27T22:46:47Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > If it’s iron, it has to be hollow. It can’t be a solid ball of iron. The Sun isn’t as massive as a sphere of solid iron the size of the Sun would be. What causes these hollow spheres of iron to form and have the specific size that they do? > > It doesn’t sound to me like it would be stable, either. There wouldn’t be any gravity inside the sphere. If a piece got knocked off toward the inside of the sphere, it wouldn’t be attracted back toward the shell- it would just float around in there. There’d be nothing keeping it from hitting the inside of the shell somewhere else and knocking off even more material to float around the inside, on and on until it is destroyed. > > But are all the astronomers in the world likewise reluctant? Most of them don’t work for NASA. They would all like nothing better than to totally revolutionize our model of stars. If an astronomer could do that, he or she could have a job at any university in the world with tenure, and would be famous among astronomers. They’d be fighting over the right to claim credit for something like that. > > Helioseismological data would be acceptable, too, as long as it’s from a refereed journal. I wish you would read the whole thread, but I understand. Please [read this](http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/) and then get back to me. I know, it’s a lot of work, but I have done a lot of work myself to come to my conclusions. Life is work, accept it, and get to work! ---
**Author:** ![baudrunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@baudrunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baudrunner)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/107 "2008-12-27T22:55:38Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > We have less than 4 years left before the end of the world. It is time for all kinds of debauchery and loose living. It makes Hedonism a good option. > [@Vox\_Imperatoris](#): > > Are you, sir, by any chance, a Scientologist? You know, just so we can complete the whole set. No, of course not. Scientologists are whackos. Check [this article](http://www.helium.com/items/881679-thoughts-on-scientology) out. ---
**Author:** ![baudrunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@baudrunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baudrunner)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/108 "2008-12-27T23:03:55Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Sorry for not checking back earlier, I’ve been away… But now, to substantiate my offhand remark a little: > > Quantum entanglement is an experimentally very well established phenomenon, so I don’t really consider it a matter of belief any more; as for the impossibility of using it for communication, **Bryan Ekers** got the gist of it. A bit more formally, the [no-communication theorem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_communication_theorem) states that to an observer in an experiment with an entangled pair of particles, nothing the person at the other end does can affect the statistics of his observations, i.e. both the observer’s measurement and influence through entanglement will lead to indistinguishable results – consider that in manipulating one of a pair of entangled particles, you don’t have a way to determine which state it will collapse into beforehand, nor do you have a method to let the person at the other end of the line know of your result instantaneously, since that in itself would necessitate FTL communication. > > Well, I’m fairly convinced tachyons don’t exist at all (for any reasonable definition of the word ‘existing’), and considerations from special relativity and the desire to preserve causality lend some heft to the notion that even if they did, they couldn’t be used to transmit information at FTL speeds, but even beyond that, the Feinberg reinterpretation principle essentially says that a (negative-energy) tachyon sent back in time can always been seen as a (positive-energy) tachyon travelling forward in time, thus there can be no causality violating information transfer. > These things don’t work all that willy-nilly, even quantum processes have rules, strange as they might seem; for instance, in particle conversions (decays and the like), there are certain conservation laws that have to be obeyed, and tachyon conversion seems like it would violate energy conservation on account of tachyons having imaginary mass (which they must have to travel faster than light in the first place). I guess I should have clarified earlier. The photon field I alluded to is actually the photon background, which is the underlying “reality platform”. The very concept of quantum processes demands that they have rules. That is what quantum mechanics/physics is all about. Quantum processes involve the transcendence of thresholds, enabling transitional events. That implies limited manifestations of creation into reality in which quantifiable products are realized. Gravitons don’t exist (read my blog posts to fully understand gravity). I don’t have an idea what tachyons are - not interested. Higgs bosons are also not real, just theory. Mass results from motion and velocity. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/109 "2008-12-27T23:23:09Z")
[QUOTE=baudrunner] The photon field I alluded to is actually the photon background, which is the underlying “reality platform”. [/QUOTE] Correct me if I’m wrong here, but isn’t a ‘photon field’ commonly referred to as ‘light’? So a ‘photon background’ would just be…? -XT ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/110 "2008-12-27T23:51:45Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I Have a Serious Question: Good news for you, then: the OP has a Serious Website. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/111 "2008-12-28T00:09:25Z")
> [@baudrunner](#): > > No, of course not. Scientologists are whackos. Check [this article](http://www.helium.com/items/881679-thoughts-on-scientology) out. Come to think of it,debauchery,loose living and hedonism are always a good option. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/112 "2008-12-28T00:11:14Z")
**Baudrunner** , now it’s YOUR turn to read. None other than Cornell University. [http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=673](http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=673) Be sure to read the cites within whereby the guy behind the the [surfaceofthesun.com](http://surfaceofthesun.com) website debates actual astronomers. Have a nice day! ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/113 "2008-12-28T02:42:58Z")
:smack: Good grief…why does someone on this board always have to bring in facts? A good debate shouldn’t be constrained by mere facts when speculation and conjecture are so much more fun… -XT ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/114 "2008-12-28T04:38:28Z")
**Half** , Thanks for trying to explain this to me. I think I got a bit lost somewhere around the Feinberg reinterpretation principle but I appreciate the effort! I get how quantum entanglement for communication can increase the information transmitted but still requires a classic communication channel to do so. Could you attempt to explain to me what evidence of tachyons would look like? And what would the universe look like from a tachyon POV? (I recognize that there is no reason to believe that they do exist.) ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/115 "2008-12-28T07:28:55Z")
> [@baudrunner](#): > > I guess I should have clarified earlier. The photon field I alluded to is actually the photon background, which is the underlying “reality platform”. Dude, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to Hang 10 off your reality platform. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/116 "2008-12-28T13:04:11Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Could you attempt to explain to me what evidence of tachyons would look like? Depends on the particulars of tachyons – îf they’re charged, for example, they should emit copious amounts of Cherenkov radiation, just like any charged particle does when exceeding the local speed of light in a medium (it’s the reason nuclear reactors have this nice blue glow to them). Think of it as somewhat analogous to the sonic boom of a supersonic aircraft, only with light. An interesting consequence of this would be that a charged tachyon would constantly accelerate, since Cherenkov emission is a loss of energy, and lowering a tachyon’s energy accelerates it, thus causes it to emit yet more Cherenkov radiation, which then accelerates it, etc., you get the picture. I’m not exactly sure what’d be expected to happen for the velocity going to infinity – [this abstract](http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1972PhRvD...6.2727J) suggests that the tachyon would have to annihilate with an antitachyon, but I don’t have access to the article. Even for neutral tachyons, similar considerations should apply, because, since the speed of gravity is (very likely) equal to c as well, they should emit a gravitational equivalent of Cherenkov radiation (though what exactly the particulars of that would be I haven’t a clue). So, looking for Cherenkov radiation in a vacuum (where none would be expected if there are no superluminal particles) would be the first thing to do; I remember reading that such experiments have been conducted, with negative results, but google’s not backing me up on that right now. > [@](#): > > And what would the universe look like from a tachyon POV? (I recognize that there is no reason to believe that they do exist.) The [wiki article](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon) on tachyons contains a nice discussion on how a superluminal object zipping you by would look: obviously, you wouldn’t see it until it has already passed you by, and then you’d see a curious diverging double image, one part travelling in the same direction as the tachyon, the other in the opposite direction; the backwards-moving image is light from the approaching object, reaching the observer from earlier and earlier points on its trajectory, and the forwards-moving image is light emitted from the object after having passed the observer, ‘lagging behind’ on the path of the faster-than-light object. As for how the universe would look like to a tachyon, well, I’m not exactly sure; but I think that you can do (somewhat modified) Lorentz-transformations between superluminal frames of reference, just as you can do between sublight ones, so I’d hazard a guess that the universe looks the way discussed above to the tachyon. But take that with a grain of salt, I’m really not sure and welcome any corrections. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/117 "2008-12-28T13:17:37Z")
> [@baudrunner](#): > > I guess I should have clarified earlier. The photon field I alluded to is actually the photon background, which is the underlying “reality platform”. > > The very concept of quantum processes demands that they have rules. That is what quantum mechanics/physics is all about. Quantum processes involve the transcendence of thresholds, enabling transitional events. That implies limited manifestations of creation into reality in which quantifiable products are realized. > > Gravitons don’t exist (read my blog posts to fully understand gravity). I don’t have an idea what tachyons are - not interested. Higgs bosons are also not real, just theory. Mass results from motion and velocity. I confess I can’t make heads nor tails of your use of jargon – I assume that by ‘photon background’ you mean the CMB, but what exactly is a ‘reality platform’ and how do a couple of low-temp photons constitute one? Does your ‘transcendence of thresholds’ refer to tunneling? What is a ‘manifestation of creation into reality’, how is it implied by quantum processes? And on and on; I’m afraid your blog posts aren’t that much clearer. And if you have convincing arguments regarding the non-existence of Higgs boson and graviton, you should submit your theories to a peer-reviewed journal, might be in for a Nobel there. But perhaps for a starting point, how do you reconcile the surface of the Sun being solid iron with iron having a boiling point of ~2900°C, and the Sun having a surface temperature of ~5500°C? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2008, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/118 "2008-12-28T16:52:37Z")
Thank you **Half**. ---
**Author:** ![baudrunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@baudrunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baudrunner)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/119 "2009-01-02T17:34:14Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > Wait, so if the sun is a big ball of iron, how does it burn? Iron doesn’ t undergo fusion or fission. How did the sun get so hot? How do these big balls of iron form? Where did all the iron come from? Why is it when I look at the sun through a spectrograph I don’t see any iron lines? I don’t want random links that happen to mention a few of the same words found in this paragraph, I want you to explain it. The site at [http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/](http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/) explains all. There is a lot of reading there, which I have done, but which the majority of you are unlikely to do, that’s just the way it is. Blame it on your educational system which serves primarily as a glorified baby-sitting service and promotes image over knowledge as the route to success. Still, if you really want to know more, read it. It is more convincing to give reference than explain it in my own words. ---
**Author:** ![baudrunner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@baudrunner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baudrunner)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951/120 "2009-01-02T17:44:44Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > Wait, so if the sun is a big ball of iron, how does it burn? Iron doesn’ t undergo fusion or fission. How did the sun get so hot? How do these big balls of iron form? Where did all the iron come from? Why is it when I look at the sun through a spectrograph I don’t see any iron lines? I don’t want random links that happen to mention a few of the same words found in this paragraph, I want you to explain it. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > I confess I can’t make heads nor tails of your use of jargon – I assume that by ‘photon background’ you mean the CMB, but what exactly is a ‘reality platform’ and how do a couple of low-temp photons constitute one? Does your ‘transcendence of thresholds’ refer to tunneling? What is a ‘manifestation of creation into reality’, how is it implied by quantum processes? And on and on; I’m afraid your blog posts aren’t that much clearer. > And if you have convincing arguments regarding the non-existence of Higgs boson and graviton, you should submit your theories to a peer-reviewed journal, might be in for a Nobel there. > > But perhaps for a starting point, how do you reconcile the surface of the Sun being solid iron with iron having a boiling point of ~2900°C, and the Sun having a surface temperature of ~5500°C? Start with your last comment. Please actualy read [http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/](http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/), not just the first few paragraphs. Inside the site you will find pages which eliminate those doubts you have about the iron mantle that makes up the sun’s surface. If you don’t understand the gist of what I stated in my response than you obviously aren’t qualified to discuss these subjects. Don’t waste our time. A fundamental understanding about quantum nature is mandatory. I suggest you reach for a good text like “Atomic and Molecular Structure: the Development of Our Concepts”, by Walter J. Lehmann (1972). You need some basic academic upgrading. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-straight-dope-on-the-mayan-calendar/477951.md?page=7)