Happy 14th B'ak'tun!

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

End of the world...we're still here!
The mayans didn't predict the end of the world, according to their calander it's only the ending of the 13th B'ak'tun (google it).

That means the end of an old cycle and the beginning of a new one.
Let's hope it's the beginning of a period of enlightenment.
A better understanding of each other and a more tolerant world.

So, happy 14th B'ak'tun to you all!

[Blake's Baby]

Aye, and to you.

I wonder how many believers in the Mayan Apocalypse also think the world is going to end on 31st December because the calendar doesn't have any more days on it.

[cynicles]

If this is anything like that age of Aquarius crap hippies got all excited about then I'll pass.

[Lord Daedra]

I never got this. If the Maya had a base 20 number system wouldn't the end come at the 20th bak'tun?

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

I never got this. If the Maya had a base 20 number system wouldn't the end come at the 20th bak'tun?

So happy 14th!!! :D

[Rugged Collectivist]

I'm so sick of this bullshit. I'm glad it's finally over. Because of everyone's stupid obsession with the "Mayan apocalypse", the Mayan leader in Civ V got a bunch of stupid lines about the end of the world.

Semi related. When I was a little kid and I first heard about this shit, I cried because I thought I was going to die really young. Thanks a lot for scaring me needlessly doom prophets :mad:

[Sasha]

http://kauilapele.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/mayan_calendar_two_mayans.jpg?w=640

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

Haha! Glad it's over (and not the world)!

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

How was the world supposed to end, anyway? Eleventy bajillion metric tons of spinning iron is something not known to suddenly cease existing.

No supervolcanoes were on the verge of going off. Nobody had any reason to suddenly incinerate the world in a blaze of nuclear fire. No comets or asteroids were or are immediately inbound.

Funny thing about the end of the world; depending on how one defines "world" exactly, the world will end in either. Defining "world" as no more than this planet upon which we live, it will end in fire, as the sun turns from a yellow main sequence star to swell up into a red giant star, engulfing the Earth in the process. Of course, it's likely that Earth will already be uninhabitable before being swallowed by the sun, since as our local star progresses along the Main Sequence it will increase in overall luminosity (a situation in which global warming really would be caused by the sun, instead of being an excuse used by apologists for major atmospheric polluters).

Or, defining "world" to include the universe as a whole, then it will ultimately end in ice. The heat death of the universe, despite its name, is ultimately a very chilly fate. This is a world with no free energy with which to do thermodynamic work. Matter has completely decayed, even the black holes evaporated a googleplexplex years ago. The only packets of energy left are deep infra-red photons of very low energy, at a density of perhaps one per light year, very evenly spread. Completely useless for life or computation.

OK, that turned out longer than I thought it would.

[Domela Nieuwenhuis]

How was the world supposed to end, anyway? Eleventy bajillion metric tons of spinning iron is something not known to suddenly cease existing.

No supervolcanoes were on the verge of going off. Nobody had any reason to suddenly incinerate the world in a blaze of nuclear fire. No comets or asteroids were or are immediately inbound.

Funny thing about the end of the world; depending on how one defines "world" exactly, the world will end in either. Defining "world" as no more than this planet upon which we live, it will end in fire, as the sun turns from a yellow main sequence star to swell up into a red giant star, engulfing the Earth in the process. Of course, it's likely that Earth will already be uninhabitable before being swallowed by the sun, since as our local star progresses along the Main Sequence it will increase in overall luminosity (a situation in which global warming really would be caused by the sun, instead of being an excuse used by apologists for major atmospheric polluters).

Or, defining "world" to include the universe as a whole, then it will ultimately end in ice. The heat death of the universe, despite its name, is ultimately a very chilly fate. This is a world with no free energy with which to do thermodynamic work. Matter has completely decayed, even the black holes evaporated a googleplexplex years ago. The only packets of energy left are deep infra-red photons of very low energy, at a density of perhaps one per light year, very evenly spread. Completely useless for life or computation.

OK, that turned out longer than I thought it would.

The theory was that when earths magnetic poles would switch a drop in gravity would cause sudden eruptions and quakes.

Oh...and aliens of course.


That would be a brilliant though: start to kill people during the night from the date-line. When killed, they would have been unable to warn earth about what's coming. Chasing the change of date with about an hour or two, you right kill everyone on earth, without much trouble.

[Blake's Baby]

I'm not sure the Mayans knew about the International Date Line.

Does anyone know even when the Mayan day starts? Sunrise? Sunset? Some arbitaray time of day or night? Presumably, the switch from 12th to 13th Baktun would take place at some point in time relevent to people living in Guatamala and Mexico, but there's nothing to say that they would start their day at midnight as we do - only that the changeover happened at the solstice. I don't even know if the solstice is the 'last day' of the 12th or the 'first day' of the 13th.