NASA: the world will not end in 2012

I hope they're right. How about you? I really though that you want the Mayans to be right.

The Mayans never said the world would end in 2012. It's like looking a modern calendar and thinking "holy cripes, there's nothing after Dec 31st - it's the end of the world!, then tossing your cat in the oven, posting an ad for your car on ebay, and calling your boss to say YEAH I did your wife and I'm not coming into the office anymore!"

ONLY to find out that it is merely then end of one grouping of time-periods. We have years, and decades (sorta), centuries and millenia (nothing really bigger in colloquial)...

They have tun, b/a(ka)tun, katun... So, after the last day in a cycle, you go.... to the next (first) day of the next cycle. December 31st, 1999 was not the last day (or I missed it again!)

hahaha!

How about if people go on a spending spree? Then when the bills arrive they will really wish that the world did end.

The true tragedy of the Mayan's is that much of their records were destroyed when Cortez annihilated them. The Spanish found it to be witchcraft and the work of the devil so they burned or destroyed almost everything.

Right. I liked your explanation above. I was thinking along those lines, but didn't know how to word it. :)

In 2013, I'm sure some kook will assert that there was a miscalculation and that the world will end at some other time. This is really just going to keep going no matter what happens in Dec. 2012.

That's part of the answer. The other part is that all of the previous calendars and the current calendar have been found. They haven't found any calendars after this current one. People have interpreted that as "the Mayans didn't make the next calendar because the Earth will be destroyed."

It is more likely that Cortez and his Merry Men probably destroyed it, or the native Mayans hid it from the Spaniards for safeguarding.

The same was said about Bush. Actually... Little known fact... George Lucas even put in in the Third Star Wars installment where the Emperor seized power of the Republic with Emergency powers. That was a direct shot at the Bush administration and how many thought he would find a way to maintain the office after he couldn't steal an election anymore.

I predict if Obama is voted out, he will leave just as peacefully as Bush did.

Little known fact... George Lucas even put in in the Third Star Wars installment where the Emperor seized power of the Republic with Emergency powers. That was a direct shot at the Bush administration and how many thought he would find a way to maintain the office after he couldn't steal an election anymore.

Uhm no. Lucas denied that.

brianfromPA --- Little known fact? It was blatantly obvious.

2 billion no... possibly 8 billion.. they don't have the day of exact creation mind you... The estimate based on all scientific measures is somewhere around 4.5 billion years. It has gone up over the last 200 years as the science of Geology took hold... Coincidentally DaVinci was the first person to really take an interest in Geology while he studied the Matter Horn in the Alps.

Well, the Earth and major rocky bodies in the solar system all seem to converge at around 4.5-ish billion years old. We've measured radio-isotopes. Uranium 238 decays to Lead-206 at a half-life rate of 4.5 billion years. Uranium 235 decays into Lead-207 at a half-life rate of 704 million years.

So, you're asking, well, how do we know what the original rock's amount of U235 or U238 was when it all started. Well, you don't need to. Because you look at how much it has now of that substance - THEN you look at how much of the decay elements (the lead 206/207) they have, and you can get a pretty decent ball-park.

But, of course, you might argue, the lead could have been there from the start (possible). But there are other decay paths that yield "daughter" elements that are not stable and those decay to other elements.

We use that technique to validate our estimates via a technique called isochron dating.

But even that's useless without a way to cross-check these things. So we validate it with comparing terrestrial rocks to meteorites.

So, we can get a reasonable "minimum" for the age of the Earth. Like finding a coin with the date of 1962 on it, we know that there was a 1962. But we couldn't be sure there was a 1961. So science works with safer "ending" limits.

Then we cross-validate by using fossils, cosmological models, plate-tectonics, general geological, changes in the Earth's magnetic poles and so on.

All yield a convergence (of supporting data) at the 4.5-ish billion year mark.

Then we have models of stellar evolution which should statistically yield local births and deaths of stars at a given rate, which is supported by observation.

It sounds way more complicated than it is. The math is pretty simple, the lab work is kind of easy once you've got the fundamentals of the science down.

Did that kind of help, did I just lose everyone?

It sounds way more complicated than it is. The math is pretty simple, the lab work is kind of easy once you've got the fundamentals of the science down.

That's the answer I was looking for. Thanks for validating the processes for me and breaking it down so I can get a better picture of what ya'll are thinking. I've excelled in math, but my angle has been primarily on currency and finance. That's a far cry from physics. :)

Whoa... actually, finance and the physics of the equations are rather similar. In finance, you use compounding of interest and e and exponents all the time. In the physics of radioactive decay (and growth) the same formula types are also used.

It a beautifully elegant set of solutions.

Now I'm just confused.....

It must be the vocabulary surrounding the equations that throws me off. ??

Actually... They did see their own end.

why did no one voted for my last comment? actually, I thought that I made a lot sense, what do you think? come on people, I need feed back, FEED BACK!!!

They should get even like North American Natives. Open Casinos. (Which I happen to part Native, so no one give me greif for being a racists)

Me too --- The Mayans were Definitely Phenomenal Astronomers but we have Only 4 "Books"(codices) handed down to us out of Thousands of books we could have had(The Spanish burned the rest) --- I'm Worried about what " Lost Knowledge" we could be Missing. We'll find out first hand won't we?!!!!!

imagine the impossible.

Interesting. The key word here is imagine. This is how religions get started.

that is the best theory i've heard all day!