We're all on the internet (formerly the net, formerly the information superhighway, formerly the internet) right now, so I feel safe in assuming that everyone here has at least heard of the Mayan Apocalypse idea that people have just latched onto.
You know how the calendar supposedly pulls an "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and has a jarring, abrupt ending? Well, a recent discovery kind of, sort of shows that to be absolutely false.
If you really needed the extra confirmation, here it is: The Mayans did not predict that the world would end December 21, 2012. All predictions based around that idea are bunk, pure and simple.
So yeah. Sorry to rain on your apocalypse parade, everybody. If you're really banking on the extermination of the human race anytime soon, you could always turn to good, old, reliable nuclear weapons (or a super virus if you're hip and with it).
You know how the calendar supposedly pulls an "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and has a jarring, abrupt ending? Well, a recent discovery kind of, sort of shows that to be absolutely false.
Live Science (The article goes on about the discovery and its exact significance, if you're interested.)The oldest-known version of the ancient Maya calendar has been discovered adorning a lavishly painted wall in the ruins of a city deep in the Guatemalan rainforest.
The hieroglyphs, painted in black and red, along with a colorful mural of a king and his mysterious attendants, seem to have been a sort of handy reference chart for court scribes in A.D. 800 — the astronomers and mathematicians of their day. Contrary to popular myth, this calendar isn't a countdown to the end of the world in December 2012, the study researchers said.
"The Mayan calendar is going to keep going for billions, trillions, octillions of years into the future," said archaeologist David Stuart of the University of Texas, who worked to decipher the glyphs. "Numbers we can't even wrap our heads around."
...The Maya recorded time in a series of cycles, including 400-year chunks called baktuns. It's these baktuns that have led to rumors of an end-of-the-world catastrophe on Dec. 21, 2012 — on that date, a cycle of 13 baktuns will be complete. But the idea that this meansthe end of the world is a misconception, Stuart said. In fact, Maya experts have known for a long time that the calendar doesn't end after the 13th baktun. It simply begins a new cycle. And the calendar encompasses much larger units than the baktun.
If you really needed the extra confirmation, here it is: The Mayans did not predict that the world would end December 21, 2012. All predictions based around that idea are bunk, pure and simple.
So yeah. Sorry to rain on your apocalypse parade, everybody. If you're really banking on the extermination of the human race anytime soon, you could always turn to good, old, reliable nuclear weapons (or a super virus if you're hip and with it).