Can we stop talking about December 21st already?

When I decided to convert the mythbusters posts on my blog into a series, I immediately wanted to write a post about the Mayan apocalypse. And in 2012, it is definitely the most famous myth floating around. In fact it has become bigger than an ordinary myth simply because of the number of people who know about it also believe in it. Hollywood has successfully misrepresented it and there are thousands, if not millions, of webpages with information that support and deny the myth. There is definitely nothing new that I can write about it; hence I did not write a post. But a new archaeological dig in Guatemala opposes the myth that the Mayan long count calendar, which comes to an end on 21st December 2012, symbolizes the end of the world. So I thought I would write my first and last post on this topic which has garnered attention for no reason.

The Mayan calendar and its interpretation are at the center of all the doomsday theories. Though the interpretation evokes a lot of criticism, the doomsday prophecies are the ones that enrage the skeptics and the scientists. I am sure most people are familiar with the prophecies, but let me briefly describe the most important ones. There are so many websites where one could get more information. Most of the information below come from talks by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Phil Plait.

1. The Alignment: Earth, Sun and the black hole at the center of Milky way will align on December 21st which will cause destruction of life on Earth.

What is the problem with this theory? The center of milky way is too far away to have any gravitational influence on Earth. According to my calculations, the black hole will have a gravitational force that is approximately five billion times lesser than that of the moon. Also, as Neil deGrasse Tyson said in one of his talks, this is just an apparent alignment due to the precession of Earth's axis. If you look at the the earth from outside, there will be no such alignment on December 21st.

2. Nibiru: A mythical planet  will collide with Earth.

What is the problem with this theory? If a planet is going to collide with Earth later this year, it should be on its way towards Earth which means it should be visible in the night sky. If people believe that NASA is, for some reason, concealing the information about Nibiru, it should be noted that there are so many countries who do not like the US and there is no reason for them to collude with NASA. Also, apart from many massive telescopes that the space agencies have, there are thousands of amateur astronomers who have their telescopes pointing towards the sky. And none of them have seen such a planet yet.

3. Geomagnetic reversal: Earth's magnetic field will reverse and the earth will lose its ability to defend itself from solar flares.

What is the problem with this theory? It is true that Earth's magnetic field has reversed in the past. But it an extremely slow process taking thousands of years. Hence there is no reason to believe that such a reversal would happen on a particular day.

In summary, all these prophecies are non-scientific, even though the proponents of the doomsday theory would claim otherwise.

Let me come back to the Mayan calendar from which the doomsday theories originate. The Mayan long count calendar is a non-repeating calendar that starts on August 11th 3114 BCE in the Gregorian calendar. It is made of a unit called  b'ak'tun. This is similar to what we call a "month". But a b'ak'tun is much longer and is approximately equal to 394 years (14400 days). Just like how a year in the Gregorian calendar has 12 "months", the Mayan long count calendar has 13 b'ak'tuns. Therefore the Mayan calendar is 5125 years long and it comes to an end on December 21st 2012. No one knows why the calendar has only 13 b'ak'tuns. But anyone following the Gregorian calendar would naturally assume that the calendar would start again. But the doomsday supporters want to believe that the world will come to and end just because the calendar ends on that particular day. It is possible to argue that the Mayan calendar is much longer than Earth's orbital period around the sun and hence it is special. But different cultures have their own version of such long calendars. Chinese have their famous 12 year cycle and the Tamils in India have a 60 year cycle. What should be noted here is that all these long calendars are "cycles".

A couple of days ago, archaeologists announced that they have discovered a small room, probably a workshop for  Mayan calendar makers, with drawings on the wall that mention dates to a period of 17 b'ak'tuns! This is a direct blow to all the doomsday theories. Archaeologists believe that there could be even longer calendars. But one point that they stress is that the doomsday has not been postponed. All it means is that no last day of any Mayan calendar symbolizes the end of the world. So it is high time that we stop giving the doomsday theories any importance which would hopefully discourage news channels and other TV channels from making atrocious programs and making a lot of money from them.

Here is a link to an article with more details about the newly discovered calendar.