The world hasn't ended except for those who died on Dec 21st. Poor things, may their soul rest in peace. So, what was all those noise about? Did the Mayans actually predict the world's end? No, is the answer. The Mayans are an ethnic group still inhabiting the central America and had been a great classical civilization once. They were especially advanced in mathematics and astronomy. Mayans had multiple calendars, longer ones succeeded the shorter ones, combining multiple ones to create newer and elaborate counts. Apart from the normal lunar and solar calendars, Mayans developed a longer calendar, called a Calendar Count, combining a solar and lunar to calculate longer years, up to 52 years. Mayans went longer, literally. In order to calculate years in the range of millennia, they combined these previous calendars to create a newer and longer one, spanning over five millennia. Or 5125 years to be exact. It is known as the Long Count Calendar. At the end of which another great cycle begins, normally like any other calendar, only pretty longer in this case. To know more about how a simple calendar was turned into a doomsday myth and related stories, please visit NASA's Beyond 2012 section. To read more about the Mayan calendar and functions, visit How Stuff Works: How Mayan Calendar Works?
Out of context and out of curiosity- I stumbled upon a beautiful post on a Facebook page, I fucking love science. The post showed a cosmopolitan city, beautifully illuminated night sky at the back drop. A photographer named Thierry Cohen, took these photos to show how night skies would look at the absence of light pollution in cities. Ineffably beautiful indeed!
No comments:
Post a Comment