Did the mayans actually predict doom for 2012?

Question

or just the end of a cycle?

Answer 1

They predicted the end of a cycle, and they actually predicted that it would be a time of celebration.  People talking about doom are just way off in left field for no reason.

Answer 2

read on mine then press the link make your own judgement

but if you took time to study about calenders and understood

you wouldn't be on astronomy asking this

Answer 3

Observations of 'kandy b' (not her personal opinion though) throws light on some inaccuracies. As viewed from Earth

1. Sun is always at some point of 'Ecliptic' as Ecliptic (E) is defined as the annual path of sun. It is a great circle.

2. Equator (Q) is another great circle. These 2 great circles  cross at 2 points (obviously) called 'Equinoxes' (Spring & Autumn) at an angle /_23.45d.

3. A third great circle that has nothing to do with the goings-on of solar system is Galaxy or its plane (G). However, this cuts the Ecliptic (E) at an angle /_119.85d and Equator (Q) at an /_281.75d.

All 3 bits of arc, E, Q & G form a pair of spherical triangles congruent to each other, one around 'Virgo/Libra/Ophiuchus' and the other (turned 180d from the earlier)at 'Gemini/Cancer/Leo/Monoceros'.

The next actor on the stage is 'precession of Earth's axis'. This has the effect of sliding Equator on Ecliptic, but keeping the /_23.45d, angle of intersection unchanged. The point of intersection slides back (to west) @ 50.23 seconds of arc per annum (the full cycle or circle takes 25,800 years). This can move the point to the same point of intersection of E & G. Thus the spherical triangle (EQG) will gets smaller until reduced to zero. That is the point when 'Equinox meets the galactic plane'. But in fact we have moved away from that point of E/G intersection, one in Gemini/Taurus/Orion boundary and another in Sagittarius (Q coinciding with it). It moved away by 88.724d. This figure translates to (@ 50.23 sec. of arc/annum) 6358 years and 202 days ago.

So the proposed coincidence will take place 25800 years after that date.

Now as per 'kandy b', winter solstice falling on galactic plane needs a similar calculation all over again. But roughly that will happen after quarter of the 25,800 years. This is so because Solstice occurs quarter of the time before an equinox and quarter of the time after the other (2nd; remember there are 2 - Spring & Autumn) equinox. Equinox pair and Solstice pair as alternate points fill the quadrature points of circle E. So it will happen 91 years and 163 days after. That will be when the /_88.724d mentioned above, will grow to 90degrees.

The consequences of all these cosmic happenings is nothing. It only means that the E/Q intersection (equinoctal) point pair that is lying not within the plane of our Milkyway galaxy will come into the plane if we are talking about equinoxes. Or else the solstice pair will lie in the galactic plane if we are considering solstices.

Answer 4

Yeah doom of their reputation for inaccurate predictions.

Answer 5

you are all right, they dont predict doom, but nostradamus however does, have a look on you tube and google. a few even predict alot of good, as some say the rise of atlantis...  ''yea i know''

but imagine this, more than say 60% of the world thinking of the same thing at once... that might just be disasterous...

or godly...

Answer 6

how often are you going to ask this?

Answer 7

its 2011 ...but its just a cycle like we have a cycle in our calender. when December ends we go to January its like that.

Answer 8

Every time the end of a cycle approaches, there are doomsayers predicting the end of everything. 12/12/2012 is the end of a particularly long cycle, so there probably were Mayans a thousand years ago predicting doom on that date---just as people predictied the end in the years 1000 and 2000. The fact that the Mayan calendar ended on that date merely indicates that they had better things to do than carve the next long cycle in stone pillars.

Answer 9

Im personally afraid of 2012.

and its not 2011.

xD

its 2012.

i thought it would actually be like..

BOOM..your dead.

e.e

im releaved to find out its like..the end of a cycle..

thats good..right?

XD

we dont die e.e

do we?

xD lmao.

ok yea..

my parents saw a show on it.google has some things on it. =)

Answer 10

the predidcted that on december 12 2012 that a catacyclsm will take pllace.  the reason people believe the world is going to end is because it means to wash down.  it has been linked to the flood of noah, destruction of sodom and gomorrah and the tenth plauge of of egypt.  most recently the floods in 2004.

The date December 21st, 2012 A.D. (13.0.0.0.0 in the Long Count), represents an extremely close conjunction of the Winter Solstice Sun with the crossing point of the Galactic Equator (Equator of the Milky Way) and the Ecliptic (path of the Sun), what that ancient Maya recognized as the Sacred Tree. This is an event that has been coming to

resonance very slowly over thousands and thousands of years. It will come to resolution at exactly 11:11 am GMT.

astronomer Philip Plait has stated very clearly that the Mayan calendar does not end in 2012 at all, that it is like the odometer on your car, as each section of the odometer reaches 9 and then clicks over to 0, the next number to it starts a new cycle, so that when all the numbers again reach 0 all the way across the odometer - the last number will change from 1 to 2 and the new cycle starts all over again.

i also heard, (not found online) thst the 13th sign of the zodiac (ophiuchus) will be between the sun and the earth on december 21, 2012.  this should not be significant b/c it spends 18 days here on a usually year, but i believe that the fact that it is the number "13" and it is not commonly known has made some people weary of 12/21/2012

Answer 11

just the end of the cycle. they didn't really predict that the world was going to end, just that the cycle would end. hopefully you don't fall for this 2012 doomsday c**p.

Answer 12

Just the end of a cycle.

"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."

From here:

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/200...

Hope this helps!

Answer 13

Its just the end f a cycle. Read this

In the Maya Long Count, the previous creation ended at the start of a 13th b'ak'tun.

The previous creation ended on a long count of 12.19.19.17.19. Another 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on December 20, 2012, followed by the start of the fourteenth b'ak'tun, 13.0.0.0.0, on December 21, 2012.

Significance within the New Age movement

Three figures within the New Age, the artist and theorist José Argüelles, John Major Jenkins, and the late ethnobotanist and psychonaut Terence McKenna, have publicized theories concerning the significance of the end of the cycle. (They arrived at their conclusions separately from one another.) They have jointly inspired a number of articles and books that this will be the end of this creation, the next pole shift or, as McKenna speculated in his theories, the end of history and events as "novel" as the origin of life on Earth, which we could not possibly imagine. Jenkins has focused on the occurance of a Galactic Alignment in the "era of 2012". Other, more mundane speculations involve a worldwide catastrophe, such as a pole shift. The idea of the significance of the date has also increasingly passed into popular culture.

Refutation

In this age we are approaching the same count again, only there is a common misconception of the Maya's practice of abbreviating their dates to five vigesimal places. According to the Maya there will be a baktun ending in 2012, a significant event being the end of the 13th 394 year period, but not the end of the world.

Inscriptions beyond 2012

Maya stelae occasionally show dates beyond 2012. Most of these are in the form of "distance dates", where a Long Count date is given with a distance date to be added. For example, on the Tablet of Inscriptions from Palenque the following Long Count date was found: 9.8.9.13.0 8 Ahau 13 Pop (24 March 603 Gregorian) with a distance date of 10.11.10.5.8. The resulting date is given as 1.0.0.0.0.8 5 Lamat 1 Mol, or 21 October 4772 – almost 3,000 years into the future. The king Pacal of Palenque predicted that on this date the eightieth Calendar Round anniversary of his accession will be celebrated, suggesting he did not believe the world would end in 2012.

Summary

Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that "We [the archaeological community] have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end" in 2012.

"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. in Crystal River, Florida. To render December 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in."

"There will be another cycle," says E. Wyllys Andrews V, director of the Tulane University Middle American Research Institute (MARI). "We know the Maya thought there was one before this, and that implies they were comfortable with the idea of another one after this."

Answer 14

It is just the end of a cycle. I'm sure there'd be more chaos if the end of the world was to happen in 4 - 5 years.