Hola
Vengo postergando este post desde dos semanas antes de ser abuela
Es que ser abuela es todo un tema
Requiere mucha preparación, una gran cantidad de tiempo incinerada por el pensamiento que se ha vuelto único, incisivo, concentrado en un no-nato bellísimo, rosadito, que se chupa el dedo con insistencia y se mueve como si sólo eso fuera lo que tuviera que hacer, gracias a esta maravilla de tecnología que constituyen las ecografías 3D.
Ser abuela, y primeriza, como es mi caso, es todo un acontecimiento, pre y post.
Bien, todo llega, y ya me bautizaron bula o buela o lela o......
Y aquí el post
Este tópico lleva océanos de tinta
Es, digamos, hasta remanido
Todo el mundo ha dicho algo de él
Todo el mundo anda escribiendo o filmando algo sobre él
Y , lo que es más evidente, todo el mundo anda pensando en él
Vale, pues, un seguimiento
No necesito doctorarme para explicarlo, porque no soy de aquéllas personas que consideran que la creatividad está en la originalidad o en el perfil académico ah hocVengo postergando este post desde dos semanas antes de ser abuela
Es que ser abuela es todo un tema
Requiere mucha preparación, una gran cantidad de tiempo incinerada por el pensamiento que se ha vuelto único, incisivo, concentrado en un no-nato bellísimo, rosadito, que se chupa el dedo con insistencia y se mueve como si sólo eso fuera lo que tuviera que hacer, gracias a esta maravilla de tecnología que constituyen las ecografías 3D.
Ser abuela, y primeriza, como es mi caso, es todo un acontecimiento, pre y post.
Bien, todo llega, y ya me bautizaron bula o buela o lela o......
Y aquí el post
Este tópico lleva océanos de tinta
Es, digamos, hasta remanido
Todo el mundo ha dicho algo de él
Todo el mundo anda escribiendo o filmando algo sobre él
Y , lo que es más evidente, todo el mundo anda pensando en él
Vale, pues, un seguimiento
Yo, al menos, no pienso escribir ni divagar ni aumentar el rango de palabras escritas alrededor de este tema; el 21 de diciembre de 2012, el calendario maya que termina, el egipcio que también termina en esa fecha, y qué significado podemos darle o qué acontecimientos podemos implicar o deducir de esto.
Empecemos a ver de qué se trata y de qué no se trata
Me ha interesado la propuesta de Feibert que resuelve la cuestión basándose en arquetipos y en la picardía yanqui pro comercialización de películas. Demasiado simplista para mi gusto pero para tenerla en cuenta.
Empecemos a ver de qué se trata y de qué no se trata
Me ha interesado la propuesta de Feibert que resuelve la cuestión basándose en arquetipos y en la picardía yanqui pro comercialización de películas. Demasiado simplista para mi gusto pero para tenerla en cuenta.
Algo más #científico#, quizás?
Leyendo a Taringa, nos encontramos esta perlita
La NASA anuncia que una tempestad solar puede causar un desastre en el 2012
Un reciente informe (un dossier de 145 páginas) realizado para la NASA y la ESA a traves de la Academia Nacional de Ciencias de EE.UU. corrobora las apocalipticas predicciones para el año 2012. El informe dice que se espera para el 2012 una tormenta solar que dara al traste con todos los sistemas vivos en la Tierra.
Es la primera vez que algunos de los científicos de la NASA están empezando a creer las profecias de los mayas y los indios hopi. Estas personas predijeron el final de la Quinta Era (actual) con una gran tragedia cósmica. Y la NASA dijo en lo publicado por la Academia Nacional de Ciencias, que es un motivo de preocupación lo que estamos publicando a continuación. En este número se habla explícitamente de los riesgos potenciales de una serie de eventos catastróficos que se sucederan a lo largo de 2012. Estos eventos se caracterizan por el bombardeo de tormentas solares reales y por enjambres de un asteroide.
Esto es lo que llevo a la idea de recoger semillas que se mantienen en la isla de Svalbard, ¿No se han percatado de ello? El túnel que fue construido hasta Svalbard está situado a medio camino entre Noruega y el Polo Norte, y tiene la capacidad de contener 4,5 millones de diferentes muestras de semillas. Ya que cada muestra contiene 500 semillas de promedio, alrededor de 2,25 millones de semillas pueden ser contenidas. Están situadas en la región ártica de almacenamiento para el caso de una futura catástrofe que podría eliminar los cultivos alimentarios. La posición ha sido cuidadosamente escogida después de realizar una consulta a varios científicos, con la finalidad de ofrecer la máxima protección a las semillas. Se ha construido un túnel subterráneo de 120 metros dentro de una montaña, y a una altura de 130 metros sobre el nivel del mar, en el permafrost, a fin de que las muestras permanezcan congeladas, incluso sin electricidad, como nos comentó el astrofísico experto en amenazas del espacio Jacco Van der Worp y Marshall Masters experto en materia rocosa espacial y la crisis climática de 2012.
"En 2012 existe la amenaza de la reaparición de un poderoso fenómeno magnético que traerá como consecuencia la perdida de las comunicaciones en todo el globo terrestre." comenta Marshall
La noticia pone los pelos de punta, en primer lugar, se perderá toda comunicación, olvidense de la red (por supuesto inalambrica), por teléfono, a través de bluetooth, a través de satélite. Las alarmantes consecuencias del escenario pintado por la NASA en 2012 ponen en peligro, de hecho, la vida cotidiana de todos y, la seguridad nacional de cualquier país, incluso con un mínimo sistema de telecomunicaciones.
Esta situación se producirá en la denominada "fase activa", que atraviesa el Sol cada 11 años, durante este período, nuestra estrella puede generar tormentas magnéticas más o menos potentes, capaces, según la mayor o menor intensidad, dejar fuera de uso los satélites, es también una amenaza para la seguridad de los astronautas o, en casos excepcionales como el previsto para 2012, representar la destrucción de los sistemas de telecomunicaciones y de distribución de energía. Cuando estos sistemas caigan y hagan saltar en cascada otros secundarios rápidamente, traerá consecuencias muy graves: "El impacto de la tormenta podrían caer sobre las estructuras interconectadas, con efectos devastadores: la distribución del agua potable se hará del todo imposible en pocas horas, se perderan los alimentos que se encuentren en camaras en el espacio comprendido entre 12 y 24 horas, los meios de transporte también se verán afectados", preve Jacco
Pero lo que es peor, escribe el equipo dirigido por Daniel Baker, director del Laboratorio de Física Atmosférica y Espacial de la Universidad de Colorado, es que
"los servicios de emergencia podrían ser interrumpidos y el control sobre el país perdido"
La única forma de minimizar los problemas es mantener una observación permanente del Sol, vigilar y estudiar con detalle las tormentas magnéticas, y de intervenir a nivel tecnológico para fortalecer las infraestructuras relativas a las comunicaciones. "Un fallo catastrófico de la infraestructura y del gobierno, tanto en el espacio como en la Tierra, puede ser mitigado por el aumento de la preparación de la gente sobre estos temas, el fortalecimiento de las estructuras en desarrollo vulnerables en previsión de las tormentas solares", comenta Baker concluyendo la investigación, "Sin acción o sin planes de prevención, la mayor dependencia de tecnología avanzada, pero sensible a los fenómenos del espacio puede hacer nuestra sociedad muy vulnerable en el futuro y enviarnos a la edad media".
leer el informe especial que en estos días y en las manos de la NASA y la ESA
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10043419/UFO-Blogger-NASA-Catastrophic-Sun-Storm-Possible-by-2012
Ahora, señores y señoras, la NASA:
The Great 2012 Doomsday Scare
This guest article on 2012 was written by E. C. Krupp, Director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and is reprinted with permission from Sky & Telescope Magazine. The publisher and the author reserve all rights. All opinions are the author's own.
The year 2012 is acting like a badly behaved celebrity. Frightful rumors and gossip are spreading. Already more than a half dozen books are marketing, to eager fans, astronomical fears about 2012 End Times. Opening in theaters on Friday, Nov. 13, will be 2012, a $200-million disaster movie that seems designed to break all records for disaster spectacles -- with cracking continents, plunging asteroids, burning cities, and a tsunami throwing an aircraft carrier through the White House. The movie's ominous slogan: "Find out the truth." Two other major movies about the 2012 doomsday are also reported to be in the works.
Anyone who cruises the internet or all-night talk radio knows why. The ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala kept a calendar that is about to roll up the red carpet of time, swing the solar system into transcendental alignment with the heart of the Milky Way, and turn Earth into a bowling pin for a rogue planet heading down our alley for a strike.
None of it is true. People you know, however, are likely becoming a bit afraid that modern astronomy and Maya secrets are indeed conspiring to bring our doom. If people know you’re an astronomer, they will soon be asking you all about it.
Here is what you need to know.
Birth of a Notion
We"ve had similar scares in the recent past, but none quite like this. The last time the world got all worked up over the mystical turning of a calendar was the false Millennium of Jan. 1, 2000. Never mind the actual Y2K computer-date bug. True-believer authors (and their imitators) published scary and/or hopeful books about the moment's prophetic potential to catch an immense cosmic wave and change everything for either good or ill. Borrowing a forecast from Nostradamus, the 16th-century French riddler, author Charles Berlitz predicted catastrophe in his 1981 book Doomsday 1999. Berlitz (fresh off books on Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle), warned that 1999 could inflict flood, famine, pollution and a shift of Earth's magnetic poles. He also spotlighted the planetary alignment of May 5, 2000, and warned that it could bring solar flares, severe earthquakes, "land changes" and "seismic explosions."
In the 1990s an entire "Earth Changes" movement swelled into being as the end of the century neared, with all sorts of Millennial expectations -- earthquakes, plagues, polar axis shifts, continents sliding into the sea, Atlantis rising and more. In England, the Sun tabloid predicted a "marvelous millennium of joy, peace, prosperity."
When Jan. 1, 2000, came and went with nothing worse than ski-lift passes printing the date as 1900, the focus shifted to "5/5/2000" several months later. Most believers in the power of planetary alignments forgot the failure of earlier lineups to induce disaster. The "Jupiter Effect" cataclysm predicted for March 10, 1982 (named for the 1974 book about it by John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann) commanded headlines but never materialized.
Throughout history, end-of-the-world movements missing their mark number in the "hundreds of thousands at the very least, says Richard Landes, historian at Boston University and director of its Center for Millennial Studies. But people eager for the world to end are not to be denied, and this time, of course, all will be different.
The Rollover
What exactly is the Maya calendar about to do? On Dec. 21, 2012, it will display the equivalent of a string of zeros, like the odometer turning over on your car, with the close of something like a millennium. In Maya calendrics, however, it's not the end of a thousand years. It's the end of Baktun 13. The Maya calendar was based on multiple cycles of time, and the baktun was one of them. A baktun is 144,000 days: a little more than 394 years.
Scholars have deciphered how the Maya calendar worked from historical texts and ancient inscriptions, and they have accurately correlated so-called Maya Long Count dates with the equivalent dates in our calendar. Just as we number our years counting from a historically and culturally significant event (the presumed birth year of Christ), Maya times were numbered from a date endowed with religious and cosmic significance: the creation date of the present world order. A Long Count date is the tally of days from that mythic startup. Most experts think the start point corresponds to Aug. 11, 3114 B.C.
Most of the Maya calendar intervals accumulate as multiples of 20. An interval of 7,200 days (360 × 20) was known as a katun. It takes 20 katuns to complete a baktun (20 × 7,200 = 144,000 days). Although some ancient inscriptions turn 13 baktuns into an important reset milestone, others imply that the calendar simply keeps running. For instance, it takes 20 baktuns to make a pictun.
No one paid much attention to the end of Baktun 13 until fairly recently. In 1975 Frank Waters, a romantic and speculative author, devoted a brief section to the subject in his book Mexico Mystique. He identified the 13-baktun interval as a "Mayan Great Cycle," overestimated its duration as 5,200 years, and equated five such cycles with five legendary eras, each of which ends in the world’s destruction and rebirth. There is no genuine Maya tradition behind any of this.
Waters also miscalculated the date when the calendar would supposedly pull down the shades. "The end of the Great Cycle . . . will occur Dec. 24, 2011 A.D.," he announced, when the world "will be destroyed by catastrophic earthquakes." Exact date aside, the doomsday ball was now rolling.
Another book in 1975 also spotlighted the Maya calendric roundup. Dennis and Terence McKenna discussed it in The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. That book at least got the Baktun-13 end date right: Dec. 21, 2012. It also noted that the date is the winter solstice, when the Sun will be "in the constellation Sagittarius, only about 3 degrees from the Galactic Center, which, also coincidentally, is within 2 degrees of the ecliptic." The McKennas continued, "Because the winter solstice node is precessing, it is moving closer and closer to the point on the ecliptic where it will eclipse the galactic center." In reality this event will never happen, but it hardly matters. The McKennas linked the whole arrangement with the concept of renewal and called 2012 a moment of "potential transformative opportunity."
Broader interest in 2012 caught on beginning in 1987. In The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, José Argüelles (an "artist, poet, and visionary historian" according to the dust jacket) linked the 13-baktun period with an impalpable "beam" from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. According to Argüelles, the Maya knew when we entered this beam and when we would leave it, and set their 13-baktun cycle to mark our passage through it accordingly. The beam, he asserted, operates as "invisible galactic life threads" that link people, the planet, the Sun, and the center of the Galaxy. Neither Maya tradition nor modern astronomy supports a belief in any such beam. It stemmed instead from Argüelles’s personal philosophy, which emphasizes "the principle of harmonic resonance." Argüelles also concluded that the planets are "orbiting harmonic gyroscopes" that “play a role in the coordination of the beam," which advances the development of anything with DNA. The year 2012, therefore, will bring a rosy version of the apocalypse.
If this sounds a bit familiar, you're right. In 1987 Argüelles and his followers predicted, with worldwide fanfare, that Aug. 16–17 of that year would bring a Maya-Galactic "Harmonic Convergence." That event turned into a global phenomenon, with thousands gathering at Earth’s “acupuncture points” to create a "synchronized and unified bio-electromagnetic collective battery." Unfortunately, the date passed with nothing more than colorful newspaper stories and a Doonesbury satire. (A character explains earnestly that that the alignment could bring either "mass unification of divine and earth-plane selves," or perhaps nuclear annihilation. "Either way there will probably be a crafts fair.")
Galactic Guessing Games
Fast-forward to 1995. That year John Major Jenkins packaged several of these themes into Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. According to Jenkins, the winter-solstice point and the centerline of the Galaxy will line up exactly on Dec. 21. Arguing that this motivated the Maya to contrive the calendar to end on that date, Jenkins concludes that it will be "a tremendous transformation and opportunity for spiritual growth, a transition from one world age to another."
In fact, astronomy cannot pinpoint such a "galactic alignment" to within a year, much less a day. The alignment depends on the rather arbitrary modern definition of the galactic equator, and/or the visual appearance of the Milky Way. There is no precise definition of the Milky Way's edges -- they are very vague and depend on the clarity of your view. (Jenkins says that he personally established the Milky Way’s edges by viewing it from 11,000 feet, far above anywhere the Maya lived.) So to give a precise visual position for its centerline is not meaningful.
Jenkins did acknowledge that the winter-solstice Sun actually crosses the center of the Milky Way anytime between 1980 and 2016. Elsewhere he expands this approach zone to a 900-year period, and settles for an imprecise alignment to which Dec. 21, 2012, is arbitrarily and circularly assigned. Real astronomy does not support any match between the Baktun-13 end date and a galactic alignment. The advocates both admit and ignore this discrepancy.
It's almost a sidelight that the winter-solstice sun will never actually "eclipse" the galaxy's true center, the pointlike radio source marking the Milky Way's central black hole. Moreover, the winter-solstice sun won’t even pass closest to it on the sky for another 200 years. What did the Maya themselves think about End Times? There is no evidence that they saw the calendar and a world age ending in either transcendence or catastrophe on December 21, 2012. Some Maya Long Count texts refer to dates many baktuns past 13 and even into the next pictun and beyond. For instance, an inscription commissioned in the 7th century A.D. by King Pacal of Palenque predicts that an anniversary of his accession would be commemorated on Oct. 15, 4772.
In all of the Long Count texts discovered, transcribed, and translated, only one mentions the key date in 2012: Monument 6 at Tortuguero, a Maya site in the Mexican state of Tabasco. The text is damaged, but what remains does not imply the end of time.
The Secret NASA Conspiracy
Some advocates for the 2012 catastrophe say that what will actually cause the devastation is an alignment of planets. There is no planet alignment on the winter solstice in 2012. Nonetheless, advocates of doom connect the fictional alignment to astrological predictions or groundless claims about a reversal of Earth's magnetic field and unprecedented solar storms. Many internet postings and guests on all-night apocalyptic radio have elaborated on these themes.
In particular, several threads of irrational thought have created an internet phantom, the secret planet Nibiru. It's the bowling ball, and Earth is the pin. There is no such planet, though it is often equated with Eris, a plutoid orbiting safely and permanently beyond Pluto. Some insist, however, that a NASA conspiracy is in play and that Nibiru, looming in on the approach, can already be seen in broad daylight from the Southern Hemisphere. It was supposed to become visible from the Northern Hemisphere, too, by last May, but like a fickle blind date, it stood up those awaiting it.
Others on the Web, confused about the supposed alignment of the winter-solstice sun with the Milky Way's center, have declared that the Sun is now plummeting to the Milky Way’s center and dragging Earth with it. The predicted result? Earth’s polar axis will shift. Most of what's claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy, and a level of paranoia worthy of Night of the Living Dead.
So maybe the Maya were on to us after all. The clock is ticking. And it’s the end of the world as we know it.
Es la primera vez que algunos de los científicos de la NASA están empezando a creer las profecias de los mayas y los indios hopi. Estas personas predijeron el final de la Quinta Era (actual) con una gran tragedia cósmica. Y la NASA dijo en lo publicado por la Academia Nacional de Ciencias, que es un motivo de preocupación lo que estamos publicando a continuación. En este número se habla explícitamente de los riesgos potenciales de una serie de eventos catastróficos que se sucederan a lo largo de 2012. Estos eventos se caracterizan por el bombardeo de tormentas solares reales y por enjambres de un asteroide.
Esto es lo que llevo a la idea de recoger semillas que se mantienen en la isla de Svalbard, ¿No se han percatado de ello? El túnel que fue construido hasta Svalbard está situado a medio camino entre Noruega y el Polo Norte, y tiene la capacidad de contener 4,5 millones de diferentes muestras de semillas. Ya que cada muestra contiene 500 semillas de promedio, alrededor de 2,25 millones de semillas pueden ser contenidas. Están situadas en la región ártica de almacenamiento para el caso de una futura catástrofe que podría eliminar los cultivos alimentarios. La posición ha sido cuidadosamente escogida después de realizar una consulta a varios científicos, con la finalidad de ofrecer la máxima protección a las semillas. Se ha construido un túnel subterráneo de 120 metros dentro de una montaña, y a una altura de 130 metros sobre el nivel del mar, en el permafrost, a fin de que las muestras permanezcan congeladas, incluso sin electricidad, como nos comentó el astrofísico experto en amenazas del espacio Jacco Van der Worp y Marshall Masters experto en materia rocosa espacial y la crisis climática de 2012.
"En 2012 existe la amenaza de la reaparición de un poderoso fenómeno magnético que traerá como consecuencia la perdida de las comunicaciones en todo el globo terrestre." comenta Marshall
La noticia pone los pelos de punta, en primer lugar, se perderá toda comunicación, olvidense de la red (por supuesto inalambrica), por teléfono, a través de bluetooth, a través de satélite. Las alarmantes consecuencias del escenario pintado por la NASA en 2012 ponen en peligro, de hecho, la vida cotidiana de todos y, la seguridad nacional de cualquier país, incluso con un mínimo sistema de telecomunicaciones.
Esta situación se producirá en la denominada "fase activa", que atraviesa el Sol cada 11 años, durante este período, nuestra estrella puede generar tormentas magnéticas más o menos potentes, capaces, según la mayor o menor intensidad, dejar fuera de uso los satélites, es también una amenaza para la seguridad de los astronautas o, en casos excepcionales como el previsto para 2012, representar la destrucción de los sistemas de telecomunicaciones y de distribución de energía. Cuando estos sistemas caigan y hagan saltar en cascada otros secundarios rápidamente, traerá consecuencias muy graves: "El impacto de la tormenta podrían caer sobre las estructuras interconectadas, con efectos devastadores: la distribución del agua potable se hará del todo imposible en pocas horas, se perderan los alimentos que se encuentren en camaras en el espacio comprendido entre 12 y 24 horas, los meios de transporte también se verán afectados", preve Jacco
Pero lo que es peor, escribe el equipo dirigido por Daniel Baker, director del Laboratorio de Física Atmosférica y Espacial de la Universidad de Colorado, es que
"los servicios de emergencia podrían ser interrumpidos y el control sobre el país perdido"
La única forma de minimizar los problemas es mantener una observación permanente del Sol, vigilar y estudiar con detalle las tormentas magnéticas, y de intervenir a nivel tecnológico para fortalecer las infraestructuras relativas a las comunicaciones. "Un fallo catastrófico de la infraestructura y del gobierno, tanto en el espacio como en la Tierra, puede ser mitigado por el aumento de la preparación de la gente sobre estos temas, el fortalecimiento de las estructuras en desarrollo vulnerables en previsión de las tormentas solares", comenta Baker concluyendo la investigación, "Sin acción o sin planes de prevención, la mayor dependencia de tecnología avanzada, pero sensible a los fenómenos del espacio puede hacer nuestra sociedad muy vulnerable en el futuro y enviarnos a la edad media".
leer el informe especial que en estos días y en las manos de la NASA y la ESA
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10043419/UFO-Blogger-NASA-Catastrophic-Sun-Storm-Possible-by-2012
Ahora, señores y señoras, la NASA:
The Great 2012 Doomsday Scare
This guest article on 2012 was written by E. C. Krupp, Director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and is reprinted with permission from Sky & Telescope Magazine. The publisher and the author reserve all rights. All opinions are the author's own.
The year 2012 is acting like a badly behaved celebrity. Frightful rumors and gossip are spreading. Already more than a half dozen books are marketing, to eager fans, astronomical fears about 2012 End Times. Opening in theaters on Friday, Nov. 13, will be 2012, a $200-million disaster movie that seems designed to break all records for disaster spectacles -- with cracking continents, plunging asteroids, burning cities, and a tsunami throwing an aircraft carrier through the White House. The movie's ominous slogan: "Find out the truth." Two other major movies about the 2012 doomsday are also reported to be in the works.
Anyone who cruises the internet or all-night talk radio knows why. The ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala kept a calendar that is about to roll up the red carpet of time, swing the solar system into transcendental alignment with the heart of the Milky Way, and turn Earth into a bowling pin for a rogue planet heading down our alley for a strike.
None of it is true. People you know, however, are likely becoming a bit afraid that modern astronomy and Maya secrets are indeed conspiring to bring our doom. If people know you’re an astronomer, they will soon be asking you all about it.
Here is what you need to know.
Birth of a Notion
We"ve had similar scares in the recent past, but none quite like this. The last time the world got all worked up over the mystical turning of a calendar was the false Millennium of Jan. 1, 2000. Never mind the actual Y2K computer-date bug. True-believer authors (and their imitators) published scary and/or hopeful books about the moment's prophetic potential to catch an immense cosmic wave and change everything for either good or ill. Borrowing a forecast from Nostradamus, the 16th-century French riddler, author Charles Berlitz predicted catastrophe in his 1981 book Doomsday 1999. Berlitz (fresh off books on Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle), warned that 1999 could inflict flood, famine, pollution and a shift of Earth's magnetic poles. He also spotlighted the planetary alignment of May 5, 2000, and warned that it could bring solar flares, severe earthquakes, "land changes" and "seismic explosions."
In the 1990s an entire "Earth Changes" movement swelled into being as the end of the century neared, with all sorts of Millennial expectations -- earthquakes, plagues, polar axis shifts, continents sliding into the sea, Atlantis rising and more. In England, the Sun tabloid predicted a "marvelous millennium of joy, peace, prosperity."
When Jan. 1, 2000, came and went with nothing worse than ski-lift passes printing the date as 1900, the focus shifted to "5/5/2000" several months later. Most believers in the power of planetary alignments forgot the failure of earlier lineups to induce disaster. The "Jupiter Effect" cataclysm predicted for March 10, 1982 (named for the 1974 book about it by John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann) commanded headlines but never materialized.
Throughout history, end-of-the-world movements missing their mark number in the "hundreds of thousands at the very least, says Richard Landes, historian at Boston University and director of its Center for Millennial Studies. But people eager for the world to end are not to be denied, and this time, of course, all will be different.
The Rollover
What exactly is the Maya calendar about to do? On Dec. 21, 2012, it will display the equivalent of a string of zeros, like the odometer turning over on your car, with the close of something like a millennium. In Maya calendrics, however, it's not the end of a thousand years. It's the end of Baktun 13. The Maya calendar was based on multiple cycles of time, and the baktun was one of them. A baktun is 144,000 days: a little more than 394 years.
Scholars have deciphered how the Maya calendar worked from historical texts and ancient inscriptions, and they have accurately correlated so-called Maya Long Count dates with the equivalent dates in our calendar. Just as we number our years counting from a historically and culturally significant event (the presumed birth year of Christ), Maya times were numbered from a date endowed with religious and cosmic significance: the creation date of the present world order. A Long Count date is the tally of days from that mythic startup. Most experts think the start point corresponds to Aug. 11, 3114 B.C.
Most of the Maya calendar intervals accumulate as multiples of 20. An interval of 7,200 days (360 × 20) was known as a katun. It takes 20 katuns to complete a baktun (20 × 7,200 = 144,000 days). Although some ancient inscriptions turn 13 baktuns into an important reset milestone, others imply that the calendar simply keeps running. For instance, it takes 20 baktuns to make a pictun.
No one paid much attention to the end of Baktun 13 until fairly recently. In 1975 Frank Waters, a romantic and speculative author, devoted a brief section to the subject in his book Mexico Mystique. He identified the 13-baktun interval as a "Mayan Great Cycle," overestimated its duration as 5,200 years, and equated five such cycles with five legendary eras, each of which ends in the world’s destruction and rebirth. There is no genuine Maya tradition behind any of this.
Waters also miscalculated the date when the calendar would supposedly pull down the shades. "The end of the Great Cycle . . . will occur Dec. 24, 2011 A.D.," he announced, when the world "will be destroyed by catastrophic earthquakes." Exact date aside, the doomsday ball was now rolling.
Another book in 1975 also spotlighted the Maya calendric roundup. Dennis and Terence McKenna discussed it in The Invisible Landscape: Mind, Hallucinogens, and the I Ching. That book at least got the Baktun-13 end date right: Dec. 21, 2012. It also noted that the date is the winter solstice, when the Sun will be "in the constellation Sagittarius, only about 3 degrees from the Galactic Center, which, also coincidentally, is within 2 degrees of the ecliptic." The McKennas continued, "Because the winter solstice node is precessing, it is moving closer and closer to the point on the ecliptic where it will eclipse the galactic center." In reality this event will never happen, but it hardly matters. The McKennas linked the whole arrangement with the concept of renewal and called 2012 a moment of "potential transformative opportunity."
Broader interest in 2012 caught on beginning in 1987. In The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology, José Argüelles (an "artist, poet, and visionary historian" according to the dust jacket) linked the 13-baktun period with an impalpable "beam" from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. According to Argüelles, the Maya knew when we entered this beam and when we would leave it, and set their 13-baktun cycle to mark our passage through it accordingly. The beam, he asserted, operates as "invisible galactic life threads" that link people, the planet, the Sun, and the center of the Galaxy. Neither Maya tradition nor modern astronomy supports a belief in any such beam. It stemmed instead from Argüelles’s personal philosophy, which emphasizes "the principle of harmonic resonance." Argüelles also concluded that the planets are "orbiting harmonic gyroscopes" that “play a role in the coordination of the beam," which advances the development of anything with DNA. The year 2012, therefore, will bring a rosy version of the apocalypse.
If this sounds a bit familiar, you're right. In 1987 Argüelles and his followers predicted, with worldwide fanfare, that Aug. 16–17 of that year would bring a Maya-Galactic "Harmonic Convergence." That event turned into a global phenomenon, with thousands gathering at Earth’s “acupuncture points” to create a "synchronized and unified bio-electromagnetic collective battery." Unfortunately, the date passed with nothing more than colorful newspaper stories and a Doonesbury satire. (A character explains earnestly that that the alignment could bring either "mass unification of divine and earth-plane selves," or perhaps nuclear annihilation. "Either way there will probably be a crafts fair.")
Galactic Guessing Games
Fast-forward to 1995. That year John Major Jenkins packaged several of these themes into Maya Cosmogenesis 2012. According to Jenkins, the winter-solstice point and the centerline of the Galaxy will line up exactly on Dec. 21. Arguing that this motivated the Maya to contrive the calendar to end on that date, Jenkins concludes that it will be "a tremendous transformation and opportunity for spiritual growth, a transition from one world age to another."
In fact, astronomy cannot pinpoint such a "galactic alignment" to within a year, much less a day. The alignment depends on the rather arbitrary modern definition of the galactic equator, and/or the visual appearance of the Milky Way. There is no precise definition of the Milky Way's edges -- they are very vague and depend on the clarity of your view. (Jenkins says that he personally established the Milky Way’s edges by viewing it from 11,000 feet, far above anywhere the Maya lived.) So to give a precise visual position for its centerline is not meaningful.
Jenkins did acknowledge that the winter-solstice Sun actually crosses the center of the Milky Way anytime between 1980 and 2016. Elsewhere he expands this approach zone to a 900-year period, and settles for an imprecise alignment to which Dec. 21, 2012, is arbitrarily and circularly assigned. Real astronomy does not support any match between the Baktun-13 end date and a galactic alignment. The advocates both admit and ignore this discrepancy.
It's almost a sidelight that the winter-solstice sun will never actually "eclipse" the galaxy's true center, the pointlike radio source marking the Milky Way's central black hole. Moreover, the winter-solstice sun won’t even pass closest to it on the sky for another 200 years. What did the Maya themselves think about End Times? There is no evidence that they saw the calendar and a world age ending in either transcendence or catastrophe on December 21, 2012. Some Maya Long Count texts refer to dates many baktuns past 13 and even into the next pictun and beyond. For instance, an inscription commissioned in the 7th century A.D. by King Pacal of Palenque predicts that an anniversary of his accession would be commemorated on Oct. 15, 4772.
In all of the Long Count texts discovered, transcribed, and translated, only one mentions the key date in 2012: Monument 6 at Tortuguero, a Maya site in the Mexican state of Tabasco. The text is damaged, but what remains does not imply the end of time.
The Secret NASA Conspiracy
Some advocates for the 2012 catastrophe say that what will actually cause the devastation is an alignment of planets. There is no planet alignment on the winter solstice in 2012. Nonetheless, advocates of doom connect the fictional alignment to astrological predictions or groundless claims about a reversal of Earth's magnetic field and unprecedented solar storms. Many internet postings and guests on all-night apocalyptic radio have elaborated on these themes.
In particular, several threads of irrational thought have created an internet phantom, the secret planet Nibiru. It's the bowling ball, and Earth is the pin. There is no such planet, though it is often equated with Eris, a plutoid orbiting safely and permanently beyond Pluto. Some insist, however, that a NASA conspiracy is in play and that Nibiru, looming in on the approach, can already be seen in broad daylight from the Southern Hemisphere. It was supposed to become visible from the Northern Hemisphere, too, by last May, but like a fickle blind date, it stood up those awaiting it.
Others on the Web, confused about the supposed alignment of the winter-solstice sun with the Milky Way's center, have declared that the Sun is now plummeting to the Milky Way’s center and dragging Earth with it. The predicted result? Earth’s polar axis will shift. Most of what's claimed for 2012 relies on wishful thinking, wild pseudoscientific folly, ignorance of astronomy, and a level of paranoia worthy of Night of the Living Dead.
So maybe the Maya were on to us after all. The clock is ticking. And it’s the end of the world as we know it.
E.C. Krupp, a Sky & Telescope contributing editor, is Director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles.
2012 – A Scientific Reality Check
11.10.09
On December 16, 1992, 8 days after its encounter with Earth, the Galileo spacecraft looked back from a distance of about 6.2 million kilometers (3.9 million miles) to capture this remarkable view of the Moon in orbit about Earth. Image credit: NASA/JPL There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV and the movies is not based on science. There is even a fake NASA news release out there… So here is the scientific reality on the celestial happenings in the year 2012.Nibiru, a purported large object headed toward Earth, simply put - does not exist. There is no credible evidence - telescopic or otherwise - for this object's existence. There is also no evidence of any kind for its gravitational affects upon bodies in our solar system.
I do however like the name Nibiru. If I ever get a pet goldflish (and I just may do that sometime in early 2013), Nibiru will be at the top of my list.
The Mayan calendar does not end in December 2012. Just as the calendar you have on your kitchen wall does not cease to exist after December 31, the Mayan calendar does not cease to exist on December 21, 2012. This date is the end of the Mayan long-count period, but then – just as your calendar begins again on January 1 - another long-count period begins for the Mayan calendar.
There are no credible predictions for worrisome astronomical events in 2012. The activity of the sun is cyclical with a period of roughly 11 years and the time of the next solar maximum is predicted to occur in the period 2010 – 2012. However, the Earth routinely experiences these periods of increased solar activity – for eons - without worrisome effects. The Earth’s magnetic field, which deflects charged particles from the sun, does reverse polarity on time scales of about 400,000 years but there is no evidence that a reversal, which takes thousands of years to occur, will begin in 2012. Even if this several thousand year-long magnetic field reversal were to begin, that would not affect the Earth’s rotation nor would it affect the direction of the Earth’s rotation axis… only Superman can do that.
The only important gravitational tugs experienced by the Earth are due to the moon and sun. There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and Sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
The predictions of doomsday or dramatic changes on December 21, 2012 are all false. Incorrect doomsday predictions have taken place several times in each of the past several centuries. Readers should bear in mind what Carl Sagan noted several years ago; "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, the burden of proof is on the people making these claims. Where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and all the passionate, persistent and profitable assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.
For more information on the silliness surrounding December 2012, see:
- http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/planetx/nutshell.html
- Wikipedia: look under “Nibiru collision.”
- http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html
Written by Don Yeomans, NASA senior research scientist
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