Mayan calendar

[snopes]

Comment: This is spreading rapidly on Facebook. I believe it shows a misunderstanding of the Mayan calendar. What do you think?

[Sue Bee]

I saw this the other day elsewhere, and it made me laugh.

However, the end is still near.

[GenYus234]

AFAIK, the Mayan's didn't say, "The world will end 12,345 days from... NOW!" so day-based calculations aren't going to work.

IMS, the Mayan calendar ends on the winter solestice, which is still around December 21st. Whether the calculations involved in figuring out that the Mayan year 4999 is the same as our year 2012 included the leap days I can't say. But I would imagine that it was calculated from the last known Mayan year, which would have been around our 16th or 17th century. So, even if the leap days weren't calculated, that would mean there were only 100-120 missing leap days, not 514.

[Ali Infree]

Didn't the Mayans have a means to account for this time difference, not Leap Day or Leap Year, but some other way like a two week Carnival every 40 years or so?

Ali

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by GenYus234

AFAIK, the Mayan's didn't say, "The world will end 12,345 days from... NOW!" so day-based calculations aren't going to work.

Yes, what's the zero point supposed to be? Did Julius Caesar send a message to the Mayans saying "Synchronise calendars.... Now!"

Wikipedia says the Long Count calendar is independent of the solar year, so leap years have nothing to do with it. It does have a fixed starting point that has been worked out as a date in the Gregorian calendar (August 11, 3114 BC, apparently - nothing to do with Julius Caesar), but they'd have taken leap years into account for that. The relevant calculation would be in the Gregorian calendar, which does use leap years. The Mayans just counted days.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar

Misinterpretation of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar is the basis for a popular belief that a cataclysm will take place on December 21, 2012. December 21, 2012 is simply the day that the calendar will go to the next b'ak'tun, at Long Count 13.0.0.0.0. The date on which the calendar will go to the next piktun (a complete series of 20 b'ak'tuns), at Long Count 1.0.0.0.0.0, will be on October 13, 4772.

[GenYus234]

IOW, the Mayan calendar predicts the end of the world this year just like our calendar predicts the end of the world on December 31st, 9999?

[Richard W]

Seems so, yep.

[zman977]

I'm curious to know which companies are going to have "End of civilization" sales this year. You know someone will do it.