The is on.
We're one year pided from Dec. 21, 2012, a date that a ancient allegedly noted as a finish of an epoch that would reset a date to 0 and vigilance a finish of humanity.
But will it?
There have been many finish of times predictions over a years. faced widespread gibe when his predictions that a universe would finish twice this year - on May 21, and afterwards on Oct. 21 - unsuccessful to materialize.
But in a flurry of doomsday predictions - there have been identical baleful warnings about a universe entrance to an finish from several cultures, including Native Americans, a Chinese, Egyptians and even a Irish - a ostensible Mayan anticipation seems to have hold a many lean with believers.
The Mayan civilization, that reached a tallness from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy. Advanced arithmetic and obsolete astronomy flourished, formulating what many have called a many accurate calendar in a world.
The likely a final eventuality that enclosed a solar shift, a Venus movement and aroused earthquakes.
Their Long Count calendar starts in 3,114 B.C., imprinting time in roughly 394-year durations famous as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, dedicated series for a Mayas, and they wrote that a 13th Baktun ends on Dec. 21, 2012.
The doomsday theories branch from a mill inscription detected in a 1960s during a archaeological site of Tortuguero in a Gulf of Mexico state of Tabasco that describes a lapse of a Mayan God during a finish of a 13th period.
"The Maya are noticed by many westerners as outlandish folks that were ostensible to have had some special, tip knowledge," pronounced Mayan academician Sven Gronemeyer. "What happens is that a expectations and fears get projected on a Maya calendar."
Gronemeyer, of La Trobe University in Australia, compares a ostensible Mayan prophecies to a "Y2K" hype, when people feared all mechanism systems would pile-up when a new millennium began on Jan. 1, 2000.
For some reason, Gronemeyer says, people have abandoned justification that dates over 2012 were recorded.
The blogosphere exploded with some-more conjecture when Mexico's archaeology hospital concurred on Nov. 24 a second anxiety to Dec. 21, 2012, on a section found during other ruins.
"Human beings seem to be captivated by baleful ideas and always assume a worst," Gronemeyer said.
Believers have taken a end-of-the universe fears to a Internet with hundreds of thousands of websites and blogs. Yet others are capitalizing on a heightened interest. Films depicting a finish of a universe - including a 2009 movie, "2012? - are contributing to a ascent hype as good as to misinformation, experts say.
In southern Mexico, a heart of Maya territory, a yearlong jubilee is planned.
Mexico's tourism group expects to pull 52 million visitors by subsequent year customarily to a regions of Chiapas, Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Tabasco and Campeche. All of Mexico customarily lures about 22 million foreigners in a year.
It's offered a date, a Winter Solstice in a entrance year, as a time of renewal. Many archeologists disagree that a 2012 anxiety on a 1,300-year-old mill inscription customarily outlines a finish of a cycle in a Mayan calendar.
"The universe will not end. It is an era," pronounced Yeanet Zaldo, a tourism mouthpiece for a Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun. "For us, it is a summary of hope."
For those who are meditative about how to spend what could be their final year on earth, here's another summary of hope: According to new research, a imaginary date of a might be off by 50 to 100 years.
To modify a ancient Mayan calendar to a Gregorian (or modern) calendar, scholars use a numerical value (called a GMT). But Gerardo Aldana, a highbrow during a University of California, Santa Barbara,
Aldana isn't a customarily detractor.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration - yes, that's NASA -
The agency's scientists posted answers to a many renouned questions about a end-of-times speculation compared with a prophecy.
"Remember a Y2K scare? It came and went though most of a sigh since of adequate formulation and research of a situation. Impressive film special effects aside, Dec. 21, 2012, won't be a finish of a universe as we know," a 2009 web page post says.
The answers addressed questions about either there were any famous threats to a Earth and a law about a calendar.
One of answers posted was to a doubt of a probable proceed of Nibiru (or Planet X or Eris), a ostensible careless world that is pronounced could poise a hazard to Earth. The answer was a decisive rejecting of a idea.
"Nibiru and other stories about careless planets are an Internet hoax," scientists wrote. "There is no significant basement for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were genuine and headed for an confront with a Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for during slightest a past decade, and it would be manifest by now to a exposed eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, though it is a dwarf world identical to Pluto that will sojourn in a outdoor solar system; a closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles."
ABC News' Susan Donaldson James and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
News referensi http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/2012-end-world-countdown-based-mayan-calendar-starts-101657134.html
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2:29 AM Thursday, December 22, 2011