Need answers! Confused with 2012?

Question

They say that the mayans perdicted great change in 2012, by using mercury and venus. But how can they perdict these things by using planets?

Do you think its going to happen?

Answer 1

If you are learning physics or math it is easy to get confused.

But how can you be confused about this garbage.  There is no basis to the predictions whatsover.

Please try not to be so gullible.  

Answer 2

There have been thousands and thousands of predictions of the end of the world over the course of humanity's existence. None of them have ever come true, obviously.

These 2012 scares are not based in any science at all. The hoaxers just say something vague like "Scientists have discovered that...."

which scientists? when did they discover it? how did they discover this? where can I read their findings? have other scientists been able to confirm the discovery?

Those are the questions of critical thinking that can help you avoid the ol' "scientists say" line in a lie, piece of propaganda, etc.

Now that I've answered this question, behold how many times I've answered it in just 3 days! (counting yours)

FAQ Odometer updated (since 08/28/08)

Doomsday: 11

Apollo Hoax: 1

Wow - 4 in one sitting today alone! My fingers are getting tired!

Answer 3

Find out who 'they' are and tell 'them' to shut up.

Dos dem darn dang perdicters.

Answer 4

Here's a simplified version of how the Mayans did it:

"Let's record the year using three digits, so we can write this year as 001, next year as 002 and so on!"

"But what happens when we reach 999? What will we do then?"

"That'll be the end of the world. The world will be destroyed and the gods will create a new world".

"Isn't that a bit of  a dramatic prediction just because you decide to call this year 001?"

"yes, but who cares, we won't be around".

They used a different numbering system, but that's basically all they did. Their numbering system comes to an end in 2012, a date which was more than a thousand years in the future when they invented their calendar, so they really didn't care.

Answer 5

It's a stellar thing, not a planetary thing.  The fact that the Mayans were able to do these calculations with naked eye observing only is phenomenal.  Planets aren't going to help.

It has to do with the Sun's position in the galaxy relative to the center of the galaxy (this can be seen indirectly in the band of the Milky way in the sky).  Whether it's going to be aliens or something wild is unlikely, as this event has happened before.  It's not the end of the world. Only the end of a long-count calendar.  It's like midnight on December 31st.  The world doesn't end because the calendar year ends.

Okay, there are two imaginary lines in the sky.  The solar eccliptic (that's the path of the sun) and the gallactic plane.  They run nearly perpindicular to one another, forming a crosshairs that lines up with the center of the galaxy every few thousand years (sorry I don't know the exact number).  If you track the movement of the stars from the position of earth, this makes a rather nice marker for when to start the counting again.  

This event will happen at 11:00 am GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) on December 21st, 2012.  

Answer 6

The Mayans used at least three calendars.  One was of 260 days for religious purposes, another of 365 days for practical purposes, this was less accurate than ours and even less accurate than the one introduced to the Roman Empire by Julius Caesar.  

A third was the 'long count'.  This began at some date in their mythic past, somewhat before 3100BC.  They dd not have a civilisation thern, but their legends said they did. The long count was just a count of days.  

Now the Mayans used a fairly awkward counting system.  It was not as awkward as that used by the Romans but it could not handle big numbers easily.   So when the count got a bit above 1.8 million they had to more or less give up.  It happens to be 1.8 million days from the start of this count until 2012.

Scholars of Mayan culture say this, as this is their 'consensus' opinion. In fact it is not quite clear when the long count ends, but the most common estimates are 21 or 23 December 2012.  This happens to coincide with the solstice which they probably did deliberately.

The Mayans made no particular prediction attached to this.

There are a class of pseudo-scholars and pseudo-scientists who write sensational and fake or at least dubious books designed to make a quick dollar.  Among these are Bart Sibrel, Richard Hoagland, Immaneul Velikovsky,  the late Zecharia Sitchin, Robert Bauval, Michael Drosnin, Graham Hancock, "Sir" Lawrence sombody or other and the originator of the Bermuda triangle hoax, Charles Berlitz.  All of these books contain extraordinary assertions based on the thinnest evidence and in many cases direct lies.  

Such a book about the Mayans appeared a few years ago.  Though the real scholars of Mayan culture etc laugh or annoyed at it, the authors predicted a big change at the end  of the long count and pretended that this had been predicted by the Mayans.  Of course, if it had been it would just have been astrology which is drivel.

Since the world did not obligingly come to an end on 31 December 1999, the frauds and fakes who push this sort of nonsense seized the year 2012.  It is close enough to worry people but just far enough off for them to make some serious money out of books, DVDs, websites and faked up documentaries for TV before it all fails to happen.  Since there are no laws against this sort of alarmist disinformation in most countries, they are laughing all the way to the bank.

  

A few others had been gibbering on about rogue planets affecting the Earth, notably Nancy Lieder of 'Zetatalk' who claims to be in telepathic contact with aliens, and Z Sitchin who wrote a lot of nonsense about this in the 1970s and later. Lieder claimed her planet 'X' woukld arrive in 2003.  Ooops.  Sitchin's planet which he called Nibiru is supposed to orbit the Sun every 3600 years and a lot of other silly stuff besides.  

The frauds who are behind the 2012 scare have kidnapped poor Nancy's planet and taken over Sitchin's Nibiru too.  Since two rogue planets invading the inner solar system around the same time would strain the credibility of  all but the most gullible, they have combined them into one, added a lot of nonsens about galactic central planes and alignments of this or that which actually mean nothing or do not even exist but sound impressive.

So do I think it's going to happen?  Me winning the Marathon at the London Olympics is more likely.  

Answer 7

I predict that in any given day in 2012, you are 99.9% (.1% Natural Caused Death) of a chance going to wake up and [and if you remember] wonder... Why on earth did i ask on August 31, 2008 at 9:14 pm Pacific time if the world was going to end in 2012? And then you will resume your day asking that same question to yourself over and over again and do whatever else you do until you go to sleep and wake up the next day and then even that day will be a continuation of your life until your natural inevitable death or unless an unfortunate event happens. As i try to help your question, please do not think of this as a jerk-like tone, but as a soft, fatherly tone. Hope this enlightens you. ; )

Answer 8

you have it right and wrong...

first i must commend you, you are the first person on Y!A since i joined to ever see 'the mayans predicted a great change' rather then 'the end of the world'.... that shows you've done half your homework...

however, we're still not sure how or why they came to these conclusions.... it wasn't venus and mercury, atleast as far as we know, becuase we  have no idea how they came to these predictions (anytime someone says 'they know' what they really mean is 'they think'... we only have 4, yes FOUR books left behind by them.... of which we only know that 3 are authentic [fourth could be a forgery]....

thanks to a certain christian conquistador [the story goes that he went to convert the mayans to christianity, and later on discovered they were still performing their 'barbaric sacraficial ceremonies' and ordered EVERYTHING by them burned that could be burned (which is why we only have 4 books and whatever is written in stone left) one christian effecitvely erased an entire society from history, until someone discovered their temples in the jungle] we have no real knowledge of them, their beliefs or even their language, all we have to go on are temples and a few books...

did the mayans thinkt he world would have an extremely drastic change in 2012, yes, DEFINATELY.... they felt it important enough that even tho we've seen as much change since their reign, that change wasn't worth mentioning until now..... which signifies a change of completely unimaginable proportions..... but we don't know what they based that belief on (their calander was based in part on venus... remember, we know virtually nothing about them, all we know has been discovered through the few relics we have left.... other then that, there is no real record of them... not even in the christians records... who are ultimately responsible for their destruction in the first place, i can go into more detail about that as well if you'd like, they aren't TOTALLY responsible)  

Answer 9

a detailed explination as to why the earth won't end in 2012 can be found here http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4093 (MP3 is available if you would rather listen)

Answer 10

Yes. No.

Seriously how would you know which answer to believe?

You couldn't even use Y!A search...

Answer 11

Absolutely.  Quantum mechanics is predicting the collapse of the wave function in 2012.  Since we now know that everything is entangled on the quantum level, this may collapse everything to a 0 or 1 probability state.  Deep underground scientist are working trying to open up portals to parallel universes so that not everyone will be lost.

If your a good little girl and send me all your money, I'll put your name on the list.  But I can make no promises.