2012 Shift

[Tangleblossom]

There are many theories (some very bizarre) about the 2012 shift and what may or may not happen on the 21st December 2012 when the planets line up and the Earths axis tilts. I can find very little information based on scientific facts can anyone point me towards any "real" information please ?

[Admin]

Erm, no. It's all nonsense.

[lost thought]

http://www.badastronomy.com
The bad astromener phill plait he has a lot to say and it's all rumour, doom saying and give me your money.
All mixed in with the mayen calander and other crap.

[Tangleblossom]

http://www.badastronomy.com
The bad astromener phill plait he has a lot to say and it's all rumour, doom saying and give me your money.
All mixed in with the mayen calander and other crap.

Well I do find it odd the Myan calendar ends on that exact day, after 26,000 years. Maybe the planets just have a 26,000 year cycle so there was no point in continuing with it as it will just go back to the beginning again. I must admit, I do wonder how they had the knowledge to make such an acurate timepiece.

[Mulder]

Well I do find it odd the Myan calendar ends on that exact day, after 26,000 years. Maybe the planets just have a 26,000 year cycle so there was no point in continuing with it as it will just go back to the beginning again. I must admit, I do wonder how they had the knowledge to make such an acurate timepiece.

I think the Mayan calander did really well. It outlived the Mayans by centuries.

[Trinoc]

Well I do find it odd the Myan calendar ends on that exact day, after 26,000 years. Maybe the planets just have a 26,000 year cycle so there was no point in continuing with it as it will just go back to the beginning again. I must admit, I do wonder how they had the knowledge to make such an acurate timepiece.

The calendar does not end ... it just overflows into the first number of the date, to form 13.0.0.0.0 (13 ... woo ... spooky!). Any supposed changes to the Earth's orbit etc., are just the products or someone's deranged imagination.

26,000 years is a good approximation to the time it takes the Earth's axis to complete one precession. Whether or not this has any significance to the calendar, I don't know, but in any case nothing at all special will happen when that period ends either. About 26,000 years after the invention of our astrology, the Zodiac signs will be back in their original positions relative to our calendar, so we will at last be back in the star signs corresponding to the arbitrary dates associated with them ... not that this will make astrology any less nonsense than it is at the moment, of course.

[Julia]

Tangleblossom,

This is a good source of information:

http://www.astro.uu.nl/~strous/AA/en/2012.html

[Tony Williams]

A recent post from my blog:

I have only recently stumbled across the Mayan 2012 cataclysm belief, which I gather is very popular in some quarters. For those as yet unexposed to this wonder, it concerns the fact that the Mayan "long count" calendar (they were fond of grouping years into various different cycles) comes to an end on 21 December 2012, when some terrible event is predicted to happen. It is also claimed by one Terence McKenna, who invented something called "Timewave Zero" which "purports to calculate the ebb and flow of novelty in the universe as an inherent quality of time", that "the novelty [is] progressing towards the infinity on 21st December 2012". (see THIS item). Wow! With modern mathematical theory backing up ancient Mayan beliefs, there must really be something in this, right?

Just a couple of problems with this: the Mayans did not predict catastrophe at the end of the long count – in fact, they had celebrations at the end of their year cycles to welcome in the next cycle, just as we did at the end of the Millennium. The predictions of doom were the recent invention of a New Age theorist, José Argüelles, whose ideas have been dismissed by all professional Mayan scholars. As for McKenna, it turns out that no serious mathematician has accepted his ideas: they are just numerology (which is in the same category of scientific validity as astrology). Even more damning, McKenna (an advocate of "magic mushrooms" as the key to understanding), deliberately changed his initial calculations to match up his critical date with the end of the Mayan long count, so it is hardly surprising that they are the same.

I must once more recommend, to anyone who might be tempted to believe such nonsense, Gilovich's book 'How We Know What Isn't So', which I reviewed earlier on this blog (see the review list on the left). It really should be essential reading. You might also pay a visit to the UK-Skeptics forum where all manner of irrational beliefs are viewed with a critical eye. As one contributor pointed out in a discussion on 2012, we needn't worry about it even if you believe such catastrophe theories because we're not going to last that long. The end of the world is supposed to happen in 2010 according to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, or 31st December 2011 (if we fail to rid ourselves of all evil) according to Solara Antara Amaa-ra, leader of the "11:11 Doorway Movement". The fact that countless "end of the world" predictions have come and gone doesn't seem to discourage such fantasists. I suppose it could be regarded as the triumph of pessimism over experience!

[Tangleblossom]

Thank you for all the info folks.