Dec. 12, 2012: End of the world, or another Y2K scare?
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<!--close float_l --> <!-- +++++ BODY + STORY +++++ --> By Ed Balint
CantonRep.com staff writer
Posted Dec 20, 2009 @ 11:06 PM
<hr class="m5v"> Judgment day. End of the world. Armageddon. The apocalypse.
Doomsday scenarios abound in popular culture, books and on the Internet. Some are rooted in the writings of Nostradamus. Others mix science with conjecture. And some reference the Bible.
Just think back nine years. Fear of the unknown stoked the run-up to Y2K.
Chaos was forecast by some when computer clocks rolled over from 1999 to 2000. Average folks, not just survivalists, stockpiled food, water and toilet paper. Some even shelled out money for generators. But Y2K was a monumental dud.
Now it’s on to the next epic disaster lurking in the future: Dec. 21, 2012. The day when the world will end as forecast by the ancient Mayan civilization’s calendar. Super volcanoes. Massive earthquakes. Tsunamis as tall as skyscrapers. A polar shift.
Or so the theory goes in some circles. When scientists, geologists and history professors get involved, the prediction turns sketchy at best.
Hollywood hype has pushed the 2012 end-of-days premise into overdrive with “2012,” a science fiction and special effects-laden movie now in theaters.
The film debuted at No. 1 in the United States and, as of Dec. 17, had pulled in nearly $157 million since opening domestically in November. The movie has taken in more than $712 million worldwide, according to boxofficemojo.com.
ON THE WEB
Scores of books have been written about 2012. Theories are abundant on the Internet.
One Web site calls Dec. 21, 2012, “the most important date for all of humanity.”
The same site — www.2012officialcountdown.com — issues an ominous warning: “This is not another ‘sky is falling’ warning like Y2K. ... It’s not some made up event by conspiracy (theorists). And it’s certainly not something dreamt up for a Hollywood movie. ... 2012 is real. ... And mainstream media does not want you to know about it.”
Another Web site — http://survive2012.com by Robert Bast — is not nearly as absolute when assessing 2012. “The consensus of opinion is that there will be great change. ... To some people this means a positive, spiritual change. Others, like myself, consider that a catastrophic event may have been predicted.”
*MAYAN CIVILIZATION
The Mayan civilization is divided into three time periods that cover 3,000 years. The Maya lived in the eastern one-third of Mesoamerica, including on the Yucatan Peninsula in Central America. They were a group of related Native American tribes who had the same linguistic organization.
Maya shared common artistic and religious components, but politically they were independent Mayan states.
Accomplishments included a sophisticated system of writing. Another achievement was development of a complex calendar system. Mayan art included inscriptions and architecture.
The reason for the decline of the Maya is debated. Theories include soil exhaustion, water loss and erosion, invasion, and catastrophes such as earthquakes and disease.
MAYANS AND 2012
The long calendar or the “Long Count” is one of at least three Mayan calendar systems, according to USA Today. The long count began on Aug. 13, 3114 B.C.
The Long Count tracks the duration of what the Maya called “great cycles” of time. “The cycle we’re currently in ends on (Dec. 23, 2012),” the newspaper said. There’s disagreement on whether the calendar ends on Dec. 21 or 23.
At a site in Mexico, a Mayan inscription fragment suggests the date is important, according to USA Today.
But some archaeologists say the Maya also had Long Count calendar inscriptions further into the future. And the Maya constructed calendars extending trillions of years into the past and future.
SCIENTISTS DEBUNK SCARE
Sky & Telescope magazine says not to panic over the “Great 2012 Scare.”
“Earth’s magnetic poles will not flip, California will not break apart and slide into the sea, and a secret monster planet will not smash into Earth out of the invisible nowhere.
“But every week, more and more people are coming to believe such things will happen — thanks to a spectacular blend of bad astronomy, bad Maya ethnography, several popular books and spreading Internet hysteria,” Sky & Telescope said in a news release. “Confusingly, it all sounds like it’s based on science.”
“The world will not come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012,” says prominent astronomer and astro-historian E.C. Krupp, director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, an internationally renowned expert on ancient astronomy, including the Maya, and a Sky & Telescope contributing editor.
“The 2012 doomsday idea starts with a misinterpretation of the Maya calendar.”
NASA has gotten into the act too, launching a Web page devoted to 2012 theories. NASA writes that “our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.”
PROFESSORS COMMENT
Jay Case, associate professor of history at Malone University, said “it’s very difficult to tell exactly what the Mayans were thinking because you’re talking about a civilization that arose centuries and centuries ago, and we just don’t have written documents on things.”
The Maya “did make some pretty advanced sort of developments in the area of mathematics and astronomy,” Case said. “So the calendar that developed in (Mesoamerica) over the centuries was pretty precise in determining the movement of planets and stars and in the basic style of the bodies and heavens and so forth.”
Maya approached the calendar from a viewpoint that “life grew and died and things went into the ground and came back out again and life was cyclical,” he said.
One 2012 theory involves the alignment of the Earth, sun and the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which NASA says is an annual event of no consequence.
Don Palmer, a geology professor at Kent State University for 35 years, said there’s “no basis for that kind of geometrical lineup being any big effect.”
Palmer said it’s far-fetched to believe that the Maya could predict a “geogenerated disaster” thousands of years into the future. “There’s no reason on Earth to think that might be anything the Mayans might know about or they would have any basis for prediction,” he said.
Doomsday movies such as “2012” are “very fanciful,” Palmer said.
“I hope it makes a lot of money,” he added. “I think people should view this as a werewolf movie or something else. These disaster movies are the equivalent of zombie movies.”
‘IT FALLS UNDER THEORY’
Y2K. Tim Warstler, director of the Stark County Emergency Management Agency, remembers it well.
“I spent 1999 New Year’s Eve at Doctors Hospital in Stark County because I was director of safety and security,” Warstler said.
Medical equipment and the fire alarm system were tested after midnight. But there were “no significant issues,” he said.
Warstler is making no special plans for 2012. “Unless I see some specific problem identified that’s going to be caused by this, as of right now, it falls under theory.”
“There was a legitimate aspect to that,” he said of Y2K. “Some of the computer clocks did not roll over to 2000, so there was a legitimate problem identified that this could create some malfunctions — to what degree nobody knew, so that’s why it was taken seriously.”
“The main thing you hear is about the end of the Mayan calendar,” Warstler said. “There is nothing I can do to change that. Maybe if the Mayans were so good at predicting the future, maybe they would have predicted what happened to them — we’re not even sure what happened to the Mayans.”
*Source: Minnesota State University, Mankato
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<hr class="m5v"> <!-- THIS IS WHERE THE LINK GOES --> Repository illustration / Michael Weiss
2012 predictions balint.tif
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<!--close float_l --> <!-- +++++ BODY + STORY +++++ --> By Ed Balint
CantonRep.com staff writer
Posted Dec 20, 2009 @ 11:06 PM
<hr class="m5v"> Judgment day. End of the world. Armageddon. The apocalypse.
Doomsday scenarios abound in popular culture, books and on the Internet. Some are rooted in the writings of Nostradamus. Others mix science with conjecture. And some reference the Bible.
Just think back nine years. Fear of the unknown stoked the run-up to Y2K.
Chaos was forecast by some when computer clocks rolled over from 1999 to 2000. Average folks, not just survivalists, stockpiled food, water and toilet paper. Some even shelled out money for generators. But Y2K was a monumental dud.
Now it’s on to the next epic disaster lurking in the future: Dec. 21, 2012. The day when the world will end as forecast by the ancient Mayan civilization’s calendar. Super volcanoes. Massive earthquakes. Tsunamis as tall as skyscrapers. A polar shift.
Or so the theory goes in some circles. When scientists, geologists and history professors get involved, the prediction turns sketchy at best.
Hollywood hype has pushed the 2012 end-of-days premise into overdrive with “2012,” a science fiction and special effects-laden movie now in theaters.
The film debuted at No. 1 in the United States and, as of Dec. 17, had pulled in nearly $157 million since opening domestically in November. The movie has taken in more than $712 million worldwide, according to boxofficemojo.com.
ON THE WEB
Scores of books have been written about 2012. Theories are abundant on the Internet.
One Web site calls Dec. 21, 2012, “the most important date for all of humanity.”
The same site — www.2012officialcountdown.com — issues an ominous warning: “This is not another ‘sky is falling’ warning like Y2K. ... It’s not some made up event by conspiracy (theorists). And it’s certainly not something dreamt up for a Hollywood movie. ... 2012 is real. ... And mainstream media does not want you to know about it.”
Another Web site — http://survive2012.com by Robert Bast — is not nearly as absolute when assessing 2012. “The consensus of opinion is that there will be great change. ... To some people this means a positive, spiritual change. Others, like myself, consider that a catastrophic event may have been predicted.”
*MAYAN CIVILIZATION
The Mayan civilization is divided into three time periods that cover 3,000 years. The Maya lived in the eastern one-third of Mesoamerica, including on the Yucatan Peninsula in Central America. They were a group of related Native American tribes who had the same linguistic organization.
Maya shared common artistic and religious components, but politically they were independent Mayan states.
Accomplishments included a sophisticated system of writing. Another achievement was development of a complex calendar system. Mayan art included inscriptions and architecture.
The reason for the decline of the Maya is debated. Theories include soil exhaustion, water loss and erosion, invasion, and catastrophes such as earthquakes and disease.
MAYANS AND 2012
The long calendar or the “Long Count” is one of at least three Mayan calendar systems, according to USA Today. The long count began on Aug. 13, 3114 B.C.
The Long Count tracks the duration of what the Maya called “great cycles” of time. “The cycle we’re currently in ends on (Dec. 23, 2012),” the newspaper said. There’s disagreement on whether the calendar ends on Dec. 21 or 23.
At a site in Mexico, a Mayan inscription fragment suggests the date is important, according to USA Today.
But some archaeologists say the Maya also had Long Count calendar inscriptions further into the future. And the Maya constructed calendars extending trillions of years into the past and future.
SCIENTISTS DEBUNK SCARE
Sky & Telescope magazine says not to panic over the “Great 2012 Scare.”
“Earth’s magnetic poles will not flip, California will not break apart and slide into the sea, and a secret monster planet will not smash into Earth out of the invisible nowhere.
“But every week, more and more people are coming to believe such things will happen — thanks to a spectacular blend of bad astronomy, bad Maya ethnography, several popular books and spreading Internet hysteria,” Sky & Telescope said in a news release. “Confusingly, it all sounds like it’s based on science.”
“The world will not come to an end on Dec. 21, 2012,” says prominent astronomer and astro-historian E.C. Krupp, director of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, an internationally renowned expert on ancient astronomy, including the Maya, and a Sky & Telescope contributing editor.
“The 2012 doomsday idea starts with a misinterpretation of the Maya calendar.”
NASA has gotten into the act too, launching a Web page devoted to 2012 theories. NASA writes that “our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.”
PROFESSORS COMMENT
Jay Case, associate professor of history at Malone University, said “it’s very difficult to tell exactly what the Mayans were thinking because you’re talking about a civilization that arose centuries and centuries ago, and we just don’t have written documents on things.”
The Maya “did make some pretty advanced sort of developments in the area of mathematics and astronomy,” Case said. “So the calendar that developed in (Mesoamerica) over the centuries was pretty precise in determining the movement of planets and stars and in the basic style of the bodies and heavens and so forth.”
Maya approached the calendar from a viewpoint that “life grew and died and things went into the ground and came back out again and life was cyclical,” he said.
One 2012 theory involves the alignment of the Earth, sun and the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which NASA says is an annual event of no consequence.
Don Palmer, a geology professor at Kent State University for 35 years, said there’s “no basis for that kind of geometrical lineup being any big effect.”
Palmer said it’s far-fetched to believe that the Maya could predict a “geogenerated disaster” thousands of years into the future. “There’s no reason on Earth to think that might be anything the Mayans might know about or they would have any basis for prediction,” he said.
Doomsday movies such as “2012” are “very fanciful,” Palmer said.
“I hope it makes a lot of money,” he added. “I think people should view this as a werewolf movie or something else. These disaster movies are the equivalent of zombie movies.”
‘IT FALLS UNDER THEORY’
Y2K. Tim Warstler, director of the Stark County Emergency Management Agency, remembers it well.
“I spent 1999 New Year’s Eve at Doctors Hospital in Stark County because I was director of safety and security,” Warstler said.
Medical equipment and the fire alarm system were tested after midnight. But there were “no significant issues,” he said.
Warstler is making no special plans for 2012. “Unless I see some specific problem identified that’s going to be caused by this, as of right now, it falls under theory.”
“There was a legitimate aspect to that,” he said of Y2K. “Some of the computer clocks did not roll over to 2000, so there was a legitimate problem identified that this could create some malfunctions — to what degree nobody knew, so that’s why it was taken seriously.”
“The main thing you hear is about the end of the Mayan calendar,” Warstler said. “There is nothing I can do to change that. Maybe if the Mayans were so good at predicting the future, maybe they would have predicted what happened to them — we’re not even sure what happened to the Mayans.”
*Source: Minnesota State University, Mankato