2012: Why ask NASA??

[b.c.]

Don't know squat about the Mayan calendar and not too concerned over it either. What if it ended because some "guy" stopped making it? Got laid off or something... (I know, I'm being silly here, but...)

I wonder why a culture supposedly able to predict world disaster weren't better at foreseeing a few of their own. But hey, that's just me.

 

[Zeuhl34]

It is an interesting alignment with the center of the Milky Way.

Look at it this way though, if an apocalypse were to happen, wouldn't it have happened the last time this alignment occured?? You'll find your answer for what will happen this time.

Exactly. I believe this alignment last happened in 1986 or so, but people, especially when put in groups and fed sensationalistic news stories that should be treated as pointless filler, tend to be stupid and overreact.

 

[Calboner]

People need certain foundations in reasoning to be able to see through this stuff and a lot of people simply don't have those.

Ain't that the truth! Here is Neil deGrasse Tyson (astrophysicist and host of Nova) on the subject (transcribed from this video):

"The struggle continues. There is no greater sign of the failure of the American educational system than the extent to which Americans are distracted by the possibility that the earth might end on December 21, 2012. It's a profound absence of awareness of the laws of physics and of how nature works. So they're missing some science classes in their training in high school or in college that would empower them to understand and to judge when someone else is basically just full of it."

 

[D_Kissimmee Coldsore]

The Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar utilises base-18 and base-20 number schemes and as far as I can make out doesn't really have any connection to specific predicted events.
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for the galactic "alignment", it's really very common actually. And absolutely unspectacular.
2012 phenomenon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[D_Doewell Dadong]

There is one world renowned authority which nobody has mentioned yet.

my mother in law! she certainly believes that she knows everything. so any disasters that are impending shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Channelwood]

Here's a nice little summary, exquisitely presented as always by "Information is Beautiful"

2012: The End Of The World? | Information Is Beautiful

 

[Zeuhl34]

Here's a nice little summary, exquisitely presented as always by "Information is Beautiful"

2012: The End Of The World? | Information Is Beautiful

*bookmarked for future reference in internet arguments with idiots*

 

[D_Ivana Dickenside]

wow... NASA? really? i could have fucking told CNN that it literally doesn't take a rocket scientist to answer that question! the people at CNN are idiots!

if the general public is so worried about the aztec calendar, they should also take a look at the lunar calendar. according to the lunar calendar, it's already the year 4707. the year 2012 was already 2,695 years ago. hello!!!!!!! obviously we are still alive!

and another thing, it's super annoying that people are seriously taking this 2012 thing out of context and making it bigger than it really is. i'm gonna laugh my ass off when 2012 doesn't happen... just like Y2K was supposed to happen and it didn't.

 

[Pendlum]

wow... NASA? really? i could have fucking told CNN that it literally doesn't take a rocket scientist to answer that question! the people at CNN are idiots!

if the general public is so worried about the aztec calendar, they should also take a look at the lunar calendar. according to the lunar calendar, it's already the year 4707. the year 2012 was already 2,695 years ago. hello!!!!!!! obviously we are still alive!

and another thing, it's super annoying that people are seriously taking this 2012 thing out of context and making it bigger than it really is. i'm gonna laugh my ass off when 2012 doesn't happen... just like Y2K was supposed to happen and it didn't.

It is the Mayan long count calendar. And the lunar calendar means dick because the Mayan calendar doesn't say anything about 2012. The significance of December 21st 2012 is that is when the long count calender ends relative to our Gregorian calendar system. So the fact that the lunar calendar is past 2012 doesn't mean anything, if you changed it to lunar it would be a different number but still point to the same 'day' in time.

 

[mitchymo]

The subject of 2012 is fascinating to me and to many while others will laugh at it and treat it like all those other supposed world end dates.

It is unlikely bar a bloody huge comet impacting the Earth and obliterating it that the world will end, obvious right, but what about humans? One day it may indeed be the end of humans and we go the way of the dinosaur, could that day be soon, its plausible if soon is considered as a few generations rather than a few years.

The Mayan calendar does not end on 2012. The 'end' which the Mayans refer is that of the 'Great Cycle' where the magnetic field of the Sun 'flips'. This happens naturally every 5000+ years. Scientists know from 2006 that a unique sunspot observed moving backwards means that a magnetic flip is about to occur soon. This suggests that the Mayan calendar if anything is spot on the money in its calculations.

The interesting thing i find is that at the end of the last cycle around 3114 BC the world was believed to have been struck by a meteor storm and tsunamis and two craters have been dated to the time.

Whether anything IS actually going to happen depends i guess on previous experience and as human experiences go, how much recorded evidence and accounts do we have from the last end of the Great Cycle let alone the ones before that.
I believe it entirely plausible that something bad could be about to happen because we as modern man have never experienced the sun's magnetic flip before.

Then i think about how in the last seven years there has occured in the UK alone a marked increase of frequency and severity of events that i have never seen in the previous twenty. Earthquakes whilst being there average magnitutude of 4-5 have quadrupled, there have been four severe floods, there has been record hot temperatures and worst snow events i've ever witnessed and tornados whilst common are never as big as those we have started to see over the last few years. When you start seeing such active weather and natural phenomonon it makes you think and when you can see globally that extreme and damaging events is effecting other parts of the world in a similiar fashion then its not so hard to disbelieve that something IS beginning.

Its not going to happen in a single year and its not going to happen on a specific day but around now it will happen, some scientists are expecting that the effect of the flip will inevitably lead to an effect on the Earth causing earthquakes and floods. Nostradamus predicts two damaging ones for 2012, one in the US and one in Italy, i look forward to seeing how his prediction holds up tho i would rather it did'nt if destruction could be avoided. Already been a devastating couple of Earthquakes recently has'nt there....

 

[Channelwood]

The Mayan calendar does not end on 2012. The 'end' which the Mayans refer is that of the 'Great Cycle' where the magnetic field of the Sun 'flips'. This happens naturally every 5000+ years. Scientists know from 2006 that a unique sunspot observed moving backwards means that a magnetic flip is about to occur soon. This suggests that the Mayan calendar if anything is spot on the money in its calculations.

1) The Mayans knew nothing about the magnetic field of the Sun.
2) The Sun's magnetic poles flip every 11 years coincident with the peak of the sunspot cycle.
3) Sunspot rotation on the surface of the sun is determined by the angular momentum of the photosphere. A "unique sunspot observed moving backwards" would violate everything that is known about solar physics. I defy you to find a single peer-reviewed paper or data set that documents this event, which, had it occurred, would have been splashed over the cover of every popular astronomy magazine and had hundreds of peer-reviewed papers published about it.
4) This suggests this entire paragraph (with the exception of the first sentence) is bollocks.

The interesting thing i find is that at the end of the last cycle around 3114 BC the world was believed to have been struck by a meteor storm and tsunamis and two craters have been dated to the time.

The Earth is struck by meteor storms all the time, especially if you're going to quote a 5,000 year window. Tsunamis are a yearly occurance. Craters? Okay, which two?

I believe it entirely plausible that something bad could be about to happen because we as modern man have never experienced the sun's magnetic flip before.

Whoops. There you go again. Get your facts straight. Sun's magnetic field flips every 11 years. Kind of puts a rather big hole in your belief, doesn't it? (Of course not. When people have already made up their minds, facts don't matter, do they?)

Nostradamus predicts two damaging ones for 2012, one in the US and one in Italy,

Nostradamus? Predicts? Really?
How gullible are you?

 

[mitchymo]

1) The Mayans knew nothing about the magnetic field of the Sun.
2) The Sun's magnetic poles flip every 11 years coincident with the peak of the sunspot cycle.
3) Sunspot rotation on the surface of the sun is determined by the angular momentum of the photosphere. A "unique sunspot observed moving backwards" would violate everything that is known about solar physics. I defy you to find a single peer-reviewed paper or data set that documents this event, which, had it occurred, would have been splashed over the cover of every popular astronomy magazine and had hundreds of peer-reviewed papers published about it.
4) This suggests this entire paragraph (with the exception of the first sentence) is bollocks.


The Earth is struck by meteor storms all the time, especially if you're going to quote a 5,000 year window. Tsunamis are a yearly occurance. Craters? Okay, which two?


Whoops. There you go again. Get your facts straight. Sun's magnetic field flips every 11 years. Kind of puts a rather big hole in your belief, doesn't it? (Of course not. When people have already made up their minds, facts don't matter, do they?)


Nostradamus? Predicts? Really?
How gullible are you?

Will Nasa convince you?
NASA - Backward Sunspot

Agreed that during my research on 2012 i have got facts mixed up so evidence i then used wa flawed so fair enough but such things as the Mayans being aware of the allignment (not magnetic flips) is testement to their calendar accuracy and when comparing their beginning of the current great cycle and the end of the previous there is evidence of a global event.

You seem to have me pegged as a believer in 2012 rather than the sceptic that i am. I did not for instance suggest that the world was going to end, i noted only the plausibility. Nostradamus is a bit of fun that in 2012 i will know if he made the quake prediction correct, i don't believe through lack of evidence that he was a prophet but if two quakes in two locations of significant magnitutudes occur as he suggests then i might be less sceptical.

 

[Zeuhl34]

Nostradamus predicts two damaging ones for 2012, one in the US and one in Italy, i look forward to seeing how his prediction holds up tho i would rather it did'nt if destruction could be avoided.

You're citing Nostra-fucking-damus? Really? The man was nothing short of a hack who fancied himself a seer. He never predicted a goddamn thing; his quatrains are so fucking vague and broad the they bound to eventually occur in some way. I challenge you to cite one Nostradamus quatrain which references a specific event that either A) will happen in the future, or, B) could have been used in the past and specifically foretold an event.

Every supposed "true" Nostradamus "prophecy" has always been 100% hindsight. "Oh, look at this quatrain. If you interpret 'fire' to mean this and 'the river' for this, it's obvious what Nostradamus was talking about." It's always bullshit, revisionist, hindsight interpretations of vague quatrains that basically say "something bad will happen sometime in the future" that people use to support this hack's mythos.

Anyone can write a 4-line poem cryptically speaking of a catastrophe and call it a prophecy; it doesn't make them any sort of credible seer, though. What's that, Mr. de Notredame? Something bad's going to happen eventually? No fucking shit, Sherlock!

Don't fucking cite sources that make vague predictions or rely on hindsight to prove your "prophecies" correct. This applies to Nostradamus, the Bible, Edgar Cayce, or anyone/anything else in that vein.

 

[mitchymo]

You're citing Nostra-fucking-damus? Really? The man was nothing short of a hack who fancied himself a seer. He never predicted a goddamn thing; his quatrains are so fucking vague and broad the they bound to eventually occur in some way. I challenge you to cite one Nostradamus quatrain which references a specific event that either A) will happen in the future, or, B) could have been used in the past and specifically foretold an event.

Every supposed "true" Nostradamus "prophecy" has always been 100% hindsight. "Oh, look at this quatrain. If you interpret 'fire' to mean this and 'the river' for this, it's obvious what Nostradamus was talking about." It's always bullshit, revisionist, hindsight interpretations of vague quatrains that basically say "something bad will happen sometime in the future" that people use to support this hack's mythos.

Anyone can write a 4-line poem cryptically speaking of a catastrophe and call it a prophecy; it doesn't make them any sort of credible seer, though. What's that, Mr. de Notredame? Something bad's going to happen eventually? No fucking shit, Sherlock!

Don't fucking cite sources that make vague predictions or rely on hindsight to prove your "prophecies" correct. This applies to Nostradamus, the Bible, Edgar Cayce, or anyone/anything else in that vein.

Firstly, 2012 is not MY prophecy, i'm a sceptic as i've said previously. Nostradamus is a valid resource for those arguing of impending doom because he has something to say on the year 2012 and that his uncanny accuracy which is evident in his ability to have inspired study and believers based on predictions that simply cannot with all logic be a one in a million chance hundreds of times over.

For example:- London burnt by fire in three times twenty plus six. (66) is from one of his most successful predictions, successful in that the message can be undoubted or meaning needing to be unravelled. He is clearly talking about the Great Fire of London which indeed happened in 1666.

He has made no mention of some significant events, but if he was a seer he was not necessarily able to see everything and he was vague as you would expect trying to remember from what would have to be a vision much like you trying to remember a dream.

 

[Channelwood]

Will Nasa convince you?
NASA - Backward Sunspot

No, because it seems you fail to comprehend the article you cite.

Quoting from the press release
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]--------------------
"We've been waiting for this," says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. "A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Backward" means magnetically backward.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]--------------------[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You said the sunspot was *moving* backwards, and my objection was clearly to a sunspot that was moving backwards. I can't be held responsible for your mis-quoting of a press release.
[/FONT]

but such things as the Mayans being aware of the allignment (not magnetic flips) is testement to their calendar accuracy

What alignment? There is no significant astronomical alignment? Also, please cite a credible reference to any reference to 2012 (13.0.0.0.0) in any other than the single monument in Tortuguero, Mexico (whose long count calendar was a version that went to 20.0.0.0.0)

and when comparing their beginning of the current great cycle and the end of the previous there is evidence of a global event.

No. There is no evidence whatsoever. Define "global event". An as yet unverified meteor storm? A tsunami? Two unidentified craters?

You seem to have me pegged as a believer in 2012 rather than the sceptic that i am. I did not for instance suggest that the world was going to end, i noted only the plausibility.

It is left as an exercise to the reader to look up the definitions of the words skeptic and plausibility.

 

[Channelwood]

For example:- London burnt by fire in three times twenty plus six. (66) is from one of his most successful predictions, successful in that the message can be undoubted or meaning needing to be unravelled. He is clearly talking about the Great Fire of London which indeed happened in 1666.

My sources translate that part of the quatrain:
[SIZE=+0][SIZE=+0]
Le sang du iuste à Londres fera faulte,
Bruslés par fouldres de vint trois les six:

[/SIZE]
[/SIZE]as
[SIZE=+0][SIZE=+0]
The blood of the just shall be wanting in London,
Burnt by thunderbolts of twenty three the Six(es),
[/SIZE][/SIZE]
"He is clearly talking about the Great Fire of London". Really now? Doesn't seem as unambiguous as when the translation is tinkered to back-fit events after the fact. This is as vague as all his other supposed "prophecies."

 

[Zeuhl34]

"He is clearly talking about the Great Fire of London". Really now? Doesn't seem as unambiguous as when the translation is tinkered to back-fit events after the fact. This is as vague as all his other supposed "prophecies."

EXACTLY! That's why I can't fucking STAND people who perpetuate this myth of Nostradamus the seer. And for those of you not familiar with my postings here, I'm normally rather non-confrontational, polite, and moderate, but Nostradamus is one of the few topics where I let my nerd rage fly.

 

[mitchymo]

No, because it seems you fail to comprehend the article you cite.

Quoting from the press release
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]--------------------
"We've been waiting for this," says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at the Marshall Space Flight in Huntsville, Alabama. "A backward sunspot is a sign that the next solar cycle is beginning."[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Backward" means magnetically backward.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]--------------------[/FONT]


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You said the sunspot was *moving* backwards, and my objection was clearly to a sunspot that was moving backwards. I can't be held responsible for your mis-quoting of a press release.
[/FONT]

No you cannot, and i did admit in a previous post that i got muddled up but my main point was being that it just adds to the collection of little facets of so-called evidence that 2012 believers use to argue their point.

What alignment? There is no significant astronomical alignment? Also, please cite a credible reference to any reference to 2012 (13.0.0.0.0) in any other than the single monument in Tortuguero, Mexico (whose long count calendar was a version that went to 20.0.0.0.0)

There was an alignment of rarity involving the centre of the galaxy and the major planets but that has been proven to have already occured more accurately in 1996 or something like that so i'm not sure what the supposed significance is of the allignment that i'm hearing about.

I will have to concede that the credible evidence is hard to find anywhere else, where else can you look for evidence but the places of Mayan culture?

No. There is no evidence whatsoever. Define "global event". An as yet unverified meteor storm? A tsunami? Two unidentified craters?

Just to be a pedant i said floods not tsunami.
I read a chronological timeline of earth's natural disasters which included recorded and unverified events. The unverified events are obviously pre-recorded history but the plausibility of such events is significant enough to be included based on whatever the scientific evidence is. I would love to give you the URL but i cannot remember the site name and have tried to find it again with google but found plenty about US disasters and modern world ones but not the one i wanted to show you.

It is left as an exercise to the reader to look up the definitions of the words skeptic and plausibility.

Fair point.

 

[Channelwood]

Channelwood in Post #55: "There is no evidence whatsoever. Define "global event". An as yet unverified meteor storm? A tsunami? Two unidentified craters?"

mitchymo in Post #58: "Just to be a pedant i said floods not tsunami."

To be equally pedantic, you most definitely *did* say tsunamis in Post #50 --

mitchymo in Post #50: "The interesting thing i find is that at the end of the last cycle around 3114 BC the world was believed to have been struck by a meteor storm and tsunamis and two craters have been dated to the time."

-- and my parallel construction in listing the same events you did in the same order makes it clear that I was referring to your very words.

-----------------------------------------

mitchymo in Post #58: "i did admit in a previous post that i got muddled up but my main point was being that it just adds to the collection of little facets of so-called evidence that 2012 believers use to argue their point."

No. You were shown to be completely wrong in a point of fact about solar physics. In return you admitted your mistake but then made an attempt at oneupsmanship with a flippant "Will Nasa [sic] convince you?" and linked to an article you didn't understand. It's easy to "add to the collection of little facets of so-called evidence that 2012 believers use to argue their point" when the evidence is absolutely wrong.

--------------------------------------

mitchymo in Post #58: "There was an alignment of rarity involving the centre of the galaxy and the major planets but that has been proven to have already occured more accurately in 1996 or something like that so i'm not sure what the supposed significance is of the allignment that i'm hearing about."

I am. There is no significance to a "fact" that is not true. Are you unclear about this?

 

[mitchymo]

Channelwood in Post #55: "There is no evidence whatsoever. Define "global event". An as yet unverified meteor storm? A tsunami? Two unidentified craters?"

mitchymo in Post #58: "Just to be a pedant i said floods not tsunami."

To be equally pedantic, you most definitely *did* say tsunamis in Post #50 --

mitchymo in Post #50: "The interesting thing i find is that at the end of the last cycle around 3114 BC the world was believed to have been struck by a meteor storm and tsunamis and two craters have been dated to the time."

-- and my parallel construction in listing the same events you did in the same order makes it clear that I was referring to your very words.

-----------------------------------------

mitchymo in Post #58: "i did admit in a previous post that i got muddled up but my main point was being that it just adds to the collection of little facets of so-called evidence that 2012 believers use to argue their point."

No. You were shown to be completely wrong in a point of fact about solar physics. In return you admitted your mistake but then made an attempt at oneupsmanship with a flippant "Will Nasa [sic] convince you?" and linked to an article you didn't understand. It's easy to "add to the collection of little facets of so-called evidence that 2012 believers use to argue their point" when the evidence is absolutely wrong.

--------------------------------------

mitchymo in Post #58: "There was an alignment of rarity involving the centre of the galaxy and the major planets but that has been proven to have already occured more accurately in 1996 or something like that so i'm not sure what the supposed significance is of the allignment that i'm hearing about."

I am. There is no significance to a "fact" that is not true. Are you unclear about this?

No. :redface:

Well Congratulations Channelwood, i'm rarely blown out of the water let alone so far out!

I said tsunami tho i never re-read my post, i could have sworn i said floods.
The oneupmanship you mention was'nt like that, i was trying to show my sources, so i misinterpreted but just did'nt want people to think i was making up my own argument based on nothing. I got it wrong on the sunspot activity but i'm not a physicist after all.

The Nostradamus thing...the quatrain is vague as is all of them and nobody ever has been able to link any one of them to an event before it happens. This indeed could be because there is no link but his quatrains are uncanny when looking at the past (his future).

The fact that the quatrain we are talking about mentions London and 'blaze' and three twenty and six can be fitted to the Great Fire of London and the last line says that several from the same sect will be killed or die which can fit with the lynchings of dutch immigrants rumoured to be responsible for starting the fire shortly after the event. The third line however does not fit to anything. An anchient lady shall fall from height or something like that. The jury is out for me on Nostradamus until 2012 has past, if the quatrain about quakes is uncanny i will be less sceptical but if it passes without two significant quakes in LA and Italy then i will be more disbelieving.

Anyway congrats again on your attention to detail. I could learn the lesson to remember what i've said and when instead of being so certain of my postings.