How could the Mayans get it so wrong?

[Marquis de Carabas]

I did.

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/db?name=433

Actually, it is projected to be no closer than about 0.179AU or 26.7 million kilometres at the end of January and the beginning of February. Seeing how the world survived January 20-5, 1975, when it was only 0.155AU away, I feel there is nothing to fear.

And, of course, there is that bit Darat pointed out.

 

[The Painter]

I hope you realize I was being a little tongue in cheek. It is a cool orbit simulation. However, one little mistake in their calculations and …………………….KABOOM


Go beyond that date and it looks like Mars could be in trouble.

 

[Beady]

However, one little mistake in their calculations and …………………….KABOOM


Go beyond that date and it looks like Mars could be in trouble.

Wrong on both counts. It intersects neither Earth's nor Mars' orbit, and I have never heard of the kind of variance in orbital paths that you seem to postulate. Near as I can tell, again manipulating all three dimensions, it appears that the closest approch to Mars is ~equal to the distance between, again, Earth's and Venus' orbits, or 44 million Km. It would take an external force great enough to shift Eros 433 out of its present orbit before a collision with any planet could occur.

 

[Gr8wight]

Do you read your own links?



So a period of tumultuous upset - an overturning of the current order perhaps - but not the end of the world. They could never have meant "end of the world" revelations-style, because they believe in a cyclical cosmos instead of a linear one with creation at the beginning and the Last Battle at the end.

Given the current situation in the world, they might be right.

I'm sorry, Undercover Elephant, but I have read over the section of the page I linked to with great care, and I cannot find anywhere on it that the words "a period of tumultous upset" or "an overturning of the current order" appear.

Wait, I'd better go read it again...

...

...

Nope, those words appear nowhere on that page. Perhaps you could point me to whatever it was you were reading.

 

[LostAngeles]

Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe the Mayans got to the year 2012 C.E. and said, "Eh, you know what? That's good for now. We'll get back to it in a thousand years or so and expand it then," and it's not an "end of the world" thing?

 

[TheChadd]

I think mayans were too stupid to count past 2012.

 

[RSLancastr]

Personally, I believe that the funding for the creation of the Mayan calendar ran out after they got to 2012.

 

[Hellbound]

I think the Mayans just used a binary calender system. It ends at 2012 (instead of 2048) because some bit sequences are reserved for special functions.