What did the Mayan's really know...?

[Azreal Lucifuge]

As most of you probably know (and if you don't, seek help immediately) 2012 is coming up pretty soon. Well, just over three years.

The Mayans were a civilization of peoples in South America before the Spaniards came along and tore everything up. They were an incredibly intelligent people. They had the first written language of all the Americas. They could predict the movement of the stars, moon and when eclipses would occur. They also had this wicked amazing calendar that still (!) predicts these things.

My thought is, what happens in 2012 when the calendar ends. It stops. No more. Nothing. Polar shift? Apocalypse? The moon comes crashing to the Earth? The sun explodes? People reach a higher state of consciousness? Or (my personal fav) will zombies finally start rising from their graves and try taking over the world?

How about everyone else? What do you think?

[peace]
=-zac-=

[Velvet-Tongue]

The Calendar will restart.

[Morning Glory]

yeah, just to spell it out for everyone what we are talking about here: the mayans calender based on astronomical geometry ends on the date that corresponds to the year 2012 in our (the roman-gregorian) calender.

some people have interpreted that as an implication that is the date that the world ends. The mayan's history doesn't explicitly state that is what will happen, nor does it give any reasons for why it would happen.

That date might just be an arbitrary coincidence. It could be that the people who were writing the calender chose to voluntarily stop at that point because it was sufficiently far off from the present that they felt it wasn't neccesary to further calculate the days. Or they may have been forced to stop working on it because of some social crisis, like a politcal change or famine, and the writers died without going further.

It could also be possible (and likely) that they perecieved any astronomical phenominon occured in sequence for only those number of years, in which case it would repeat again in cycle, and the intention was for the calender year to start over from zero at that point.

Personally, naw, I don't see the world coming to an end in the next four years (after all Bush can't be elected again. Zing!)

The real date to look forward to is... I'm gonna say april 12? (not too sure on that) 2029. that's when we find out the trajectory of the near by astroid that will be in the vacinity of Earth seven years later. As in whether or not it's going to crash into it.

It won't destroy human civilization, but I'll finally have that beach front property here in Arizona.

another date i'm looking forward to ( I won't be around for it, though. too bad.):

In around 2.5 billion years, the Andromeda and Milky Way Galaxies will merge together.

it's really impossible to predict what effect that will have on the earth. the most likely scenario is that it will have no effect, that any other bodies will still remain quite far away from our solar system. another possibility that is very unlikely is that our sun will collide with another star forming a larger star and destroying most if not all the planets in our solar system. Another still more unlikely scenario is that a star smaller than our sun will enter the solar system at a point equidistant between the earth and the sun, and it will have no effect on the earth, but it will cause atmospheric changes in some of the farther rim planets.

either way in 5 billion years our sun will stop producing fusion and it will either engulf the earth or if not it will reduce in temperature enough to freeze the entire planet.

the most unlikely scenario of all, and our best hope is that a larger star orbits close enough to the earth to pull it into it's gravitational feild and into a new solar system. Of course the probability of the earth not getting destroyed or undergoing climate change enough to wipe out 99% or more of the population in any scenario is an absurdly high number.

I have a strong feeling that if the human race hasn't completely wiped itself out in the next million years or so, give or take, it will only be by virtue that it has wiped itself out just enough to start the evolutionary process all over again.

All good things must come to an end eventually.

[Morning Glory]

oh yeah, might as well keep going.

In like a 100 trillion years or something everything will be devoured by black holes until it becomes one gigantic black hole that crushes the entire universe down to a singularity and the Big Bang will repeat and start the whole thing over again.

Another theory is that the universe will have increased in speed so much that all matter will be a near-infinite distance apart and travel at faster than light speed, and time and space will go crazy and no one has any clue what will happen. I assume that it would be a reverse Big Bang, where the universe is destroyed and pops into a near-infinite number of alternative universes, which may be what started our Big Bang.

[vincentvardia]

aparently gas started the big bang... or some gas like substance.

Maybe someone will go to the bathroom in 2012 and their gas will make the sun burn it's fuel faster and we all burn to death... i have no idea, thought i'd be a bit random xD

[OliX]

just an end of that long year.... how long does it last? 25.000 years? something like that...

there is a documentary by (infamous) History Chanel on doomsday 2012 with not only mayan calendar as clue but I Ching and Web Bot project as one of the prophets for that particular date....


I know I'' gonna party like hell on that day and have my own doomsday if there's no real one

[Azreal Lucifuge]

Nostrodamus had some nifty predictions for 2012 as well.

I really am gunning for zombies though. Seriously. I wanna smash some heads and not feel bad that I just painted a wall with one of my coworkers or something. Most of them are cool people.

But honestly, I doubt anything will really happen. Kinda like Y2K.

[Senior_Diablo]

Nostrodamus had some nifty predictions for 2012 as well.

I really am gunning for zombies though. Seriously. I wanna smash some heads and not feel bad that I just painted a wall with one of my coworkers or something. Most of them are cool people.

But honestly, I doubt anything will really happen. Kinda like Y2K.

i guess zombie apocalypse is a possibility....::gets cricket bat::

[OliX]

......

All good things must come to an end eventually.

Nice explained...

[Ajax Knucklebones]

There is so many asteroids out in space and only a handful of astronomers that look for them. I say, if we're gonna get nailed, it'll probably be by one we never even noticed before and we won't know until it's way too late to even try anything.

Oh, and if the zombie thing happens and I get bit, you do NOT have permission to shoot me in the noggin. I want to see how the other half lives...

[Senior_Diablo]

There is so many asteroids out in space and only a handful of astronomers that look for them. I say, if we're gonna get nailed, it'll probably be by one we never even noticed before and we won't know until it's way too late to even try anything.

Oh, and if the zombie thing happens and I get bit, you do NOT have permission to shoot me in the noggin. I want to see how the other half lives...

like that one the size of south carolina they were talking about a couple years ago?

[Ajax Knucklebones]

I think I know the one your talking about. Yeah, like that. Just all of a sudden someone spots it and by that time....If it were going to come too close...Well....zombie city...Or should I say Raccoon City.

[Senior_Diablo]

from what i understand, it's suppose to be coming towards us and has the potential to destroy like all life on the planet.... ::gets cricket bat::

[Ajax Knucklebones]

That's the one in 2029. I'm saying they're could be one coming directly for us that because of how big the galaxy is and because only a few astronomers are experts on finding them, they probably haven't spotted it. The government spends very few dollars on exploring space from Earth, as far as looking for meteors and asteroids. They need to spend alot more money on it and hire more eyes in the sky.

[Dusk]

Maybe the Mayans who where responsible for the calander just got lazy.

[Mr Karl]

I think I have to renew my mortgage that year......... it can get a bit tense then

[DoctorZ]

>_>

Alien first contact, they take us up into their ship, we colonize another planet, and Earth goes boom, therefore we no longer need to know eclipses and stuffs from the perspective of earth.

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

I can't help believe that a group this precise about astrology wouldn't make a round calender without a reason.

[Velvet-Tongue]

Zombies will have trouble with all the zombie survival fighters now

[OliX]

That's the one in 2029. I'm saying they're could be one coming directly for us that because of how big the galaxy is and because only a few astronomers are experts on finding them, they probably haven't spotted it. The government spends very few dollars on exploring space from Earth, as far as looking for meteors and asteroids. They need to spend alot more money on it and hire more eyes in the sky.

Why? Only so we can know when we would be hit? I would rather prefer a one big WTF!!! out of nowhere in the middle of day

[Cafe_Post_Mortem]

Why? Only so we can know when we would be hit? I would rather prefer a one big WTF!!! out of nowhere in the middle of day

Yeah, but at the same time if the apocalypse is coming I would feel silly if I didn't use all of my vacation time first.

[One Eyed Cat]

haha I'm for the zombies.

OEC

[Ajax Knucklebones]

Why? Only so we can know when we would be hit? I would rather prefer a one big WTF!!! out of nowhere in the middle of day

I'm for that too as long as it lands directly where I'm standing. Obliterated in a second. That's the death for me.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

from what i understand, it's suppose to be coming towards us and has the potential to destroy like all life on the planet.... ::gets cricket bat::

Usually when you hear stuff like that, they don't really mean ALL life. They mean all human life. You just know they'll be cockroaches living off our remains and partying like it's 1999!

[Senior_Diablo]

Usually when you hear stuff like that, they don't really mean ALL life. They mean all human life. You just know they'll be cockroaches living off our remains and partying like it's 1999!

lmao! nicely done

[Ajax Knucklebones]

lmao! nicely done