Since, as you can see if you are reading this, the world did not end on December 21st, we can see that the end of the latest b'ak'tun in the Mayan calendar did not signal the end of the world any more than the ending of our calendar on December 31st does. The Mayan calculators simply had to pick a cut-off point for their future calendar predictions, and considering they chose one several hundred years past the point where their culture was actually really using it, I'd say they did a pretty good job. Sure, in these days of electronic computers it's trivial to extend the Gregorian calendar forward arbitrarily far in time, but in those days when all calculations were done by hand there comes a point where you just have to call it quits.
Anyway, happy New Year, everyone, I'll see you in 2013!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Think I said something interesting or insightful? Let me know what you thought! Or even just drop in and say "hi" once in a while - I always enjoy reading comments.