Kevin's Watch

Cameraman Jenn wrote:Well I meant Georgia O'Keefe.

aliantha wrote: she's all about sex.

This has been a public service announcement.

sgt.null wrote:

aliantha wrote: she's all about sex.

This has been a public service announcement.

Cameraman Jenn wrote:It's just the first sign that the end is near. I'm sure we have a little time left before the universe comes crashing down.

aliantha wrote:Zackly. I'm not so wild about her (ubiquitous ) flowers, but her New Mexico stuff really grabs me. It was so amazing to me to find out, two summers ago, that her landscape colors are accurate. I never got the whole "colors of the desert" concept until we drove up to Valles Caldera. And thanks again for taking us there, Danlo the Manlo.

Menolly wrote:Just under four years, according to the Mayans...

Prophecies about the end of the world (or at the very least, civilisation as we know it) have been around forever. There was a flurry of them around 2000 AD, and another bunch for 5 May 2005, when all the planets were supposed to line up. (By the way, they didn't line up and yep, we're still here.)

The Mayan civilisation covered the skinny bit of the Americas between North and South America, reaching from the southern states of Mexico down to western Honduras. Its Classic Period was from 250 to 900 AD, so their best years were behind them by the time of the Spanish invasion.

At their peak, the Mayans had the only mature written language ever found in the Americas, spectacular and densely populated cities, and very sophisticated systems of mathematics, astronomy and calendars.

They were marvelous astronomers, showing what could be done with the naked eye. Their measurements of the lunar month, the period of Venus and the year were more accurate than those of the Ancient Greeks.

Which brings us to the calendar that predicts the end of the world in 2012.

The Mayans had many calendars, because they saw 'time' as a meshing of sacred or spiritual cycles. So while our Gregorian calendar organises days for social, administrative and commercial purposes, the Mayan calendars added a religious element. For example, each day had a patron spirit, and so could be good for travel, but bad for business.

One of their several calendars was called the Long Count. It was set up around 355 BCE, and had as its chosen starting date 0.0.0.0.0, which corresponds to 11 August 3114 BCE. And on 21 December 2012, the Mayan Long Count calendar will read 13.0.0.0.0.

Now here's how it works. Our numbering system is based on 10. But the Mayans had a counting system based on 20, so most of the 'slots' in their calendar had 20 potential numbers (0 to 19). The calendar read a little like the odometer in your car's speedo (which run from 0 to 9). The extreme right slot (of five slots) would count through the days, and when it got to 19 days (0.0.0.0.19) would reset to zero, and the next slot across to the left would increase by one (to 0.0.0.1.0).

So 0.0.0.0.1 was one day, and 0.0.0.1.0 was 20 days. Then 0.0.1.0.0 was about one year, 0.1.0.0.0 was about 20 years and with 1.0.0.0.0, you've clocked up about 400 years. And on 21 December 2012, the Mayan Long Count calendar will read 13.0.0.0.0.

By the way, the time between 0.0.0.0.0 and 13.0.0.0.0 is about 5126 years. Now some Mayan archaeo-astronomers reckon that the calendar should reset back to zero and start again. But others disagree and say it should continue to 20, and then reset again.

We don't have enough information to know who is correct - but if it does go up to 20, then this completely destroys the End of Days Conspiracy Theory, as far as the year 2012 is concerned. But let's stick to the 13 Conspiracy for the time being.

The claims for 21 December 2012 cover a lot of ground. They range from 'nuclear holocaust' to 'Harmonic Convergence of cosmic energy flowing through the earth, cleansing it and raising it to a higher level of vibration', and along the way they include 'the death of two-thirds of humanity' and 'the north and south poles will split' - you get the picture.

But there are two problems with this.

First, when a calendar comes to the end of a cycle, it just rolls over into the next cycle. In our Western society, every year 31 December is followed, not by the End of the World, but by 1 January. So 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan calendar will be followed by 0.0.0.0.1 - or good-ol' 22 December 2012, with only a few shopping days left to Christmas.

And the second problem is that it is always remarkably difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, and things that haven't happened yet.

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki

Menolly wrote:Besides, the world can't end before the final book of The Last Chronicles is released. Just can't happen.

Michael Hand: I have been a major fan ever since first picking up Lord Fouls Bane, and have read the first and second chronicles countless times. I was ecstatic to hear of the release of the first book in the last chronicles.

I am perturbed, however, about the release date of the last book in the 'Last Chronicles'. On www.kevinswatch.com, the release date for 'The Last Dark' is shown as 2013.

According to the Mayan prophecies the world is going to end in December 2012 which means we are all going to miss out on the last book.

Would it be possible for you to have the series complete so we can all read the conclusion before the end of the world?





It's possible that "human error" has led to a few small miscalculations about when the end of the world will actually occur. I see no reason to believe that the publication of "The Last Dark" won't coincide exactly with (or even cause) the end of the world. <grin>
(05/28/2006)

sgt.null wrote:

aliantha wrote: she's all about sex.

This has been a public service announcement.