Yahoo! 2012 Ain’t The End Of The World
The much hyped prediction that, according to the ancient Mayan calendar, the world will end on Dec. 21, 2012 may be based on a miscalculation. According to recent research, the mythological date of the end of days may be off by 50 to 100 years.
To convert the ancient Mayan calendar to the Gregorian (or modern) calendar, scholars use a numerical value (called the GMT). But Gerardo Aldana, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says the data supporting the widely-adopted conversion factor may be invalid.
In a chapter in the book “Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World,” Aldana casts doubt on the accuracy of the Mayan calendar correlation, saying that the 2012 prophecy as well as other historical dates may be off.
For some, the Y2K scare and then 9/11 provided proof that the end is near. The tsunami in the Indian Ocean and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as well as the 2008 near-collapse of the world financial institutions only added more fuel to the fire.
But the Mayan predictions have held the most sway with believers. At the height of that Mesoamerican civilization from 300 to 900 A.D., advanced mathematics and primitive astronomy flourished, creating what many have called the most accurate calendar in the world. The Mayans predicted a final event that included a solar shift, a Venus transit and violent earthquakes.
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