Anonymous says:
So the real question. Did this in any way convince your co-worker?
Wood says:
Note that the earth has reached legal drinking age in most european countries for at least 2 galactic years.
Just saying
Steve V. says:
I hope the person with a pumpkin on his shoulders got to hear some of this. Of course, more likely than not, it did not penetrate. Presumably he is just a parrot for someone else's whacked ideas and probably jumbled them somewhat, but they had to be pure mush in the first place. A *true* understanding of science ought to be a requirement to vote and drive a car. ;-)
= By the way, this *is* cool - just a different type of cool. =
M. Northstar says:
Win!! I think this was plenty cool enough, actually. I find this kind of thing more hilarious than annoying, personally. It's funny to what lengths man will go to make himself the center of the universe. My favourite is from Schwarzenegger's "End of Days", where that priest "explains" how "the number of the Beast", 666, really is 999 written upside down, that it really means 1999, and that it means that the judgment day will come with the end of the millenium. And he looked like he expected someone to protest. Well duuuuh ROFLMAO. (Leaving aside the contention that the millenium changed in 2001, and not 2000, the original writers of the book of revelations didn't use arabic numerals, did they?) An honourable mention here must go to the "new" Omen movie, which so neatly sidestepped the annoying fact that the world *didn't* end in 2000.
ayline says:
Can the cool thing you have for us tomorrow include astronomy trivia?
Da Pic says:
Isn't it frustrating knowing even a LITTLE about science (much less a lot), and talking to muggles? I gave up on teaching it 12 years ago when I realized I was unable to communicate my love and fascination. :-(
Anonymous says:
It's a good and honest rant. As a student of geography you wouldn't believe how much of this sort of rubbish I hear and there is just a point where you want to give up on explaining why someone is wrong.
Nerrin says:
An entertaining read anyways. Heh. The only use I find in this meme is in storytelling, because it's a nice and immediate date to place bad things happening. It even fuels my favorite modern RPG setting, Dark*Matter. But it's too immediate, and will be burned out soon, which makes me sad, because I know I won't have gotten all the mileage out of it that I wanted to.
Corvid says:
That man is ridiculous. Doesn't he know 2012 will herald the zombie apocalypse?
TheWinterOak says:
Just wanted to say I love your scientific clarifications, be it the Mayan Calendar or the terminal velocity of a Balrog. Keep up the good work!
-=2=-
Bryce says:
They're freaking out because some (bad) scholars think the highest amount of Baktun is 13 - like theres never more then 366 days in the year. So it's not that it's about there's supposed to be a B'ak'tun plus one, but that it resets to zero... And there's no (known) next highest measurement (in that calendar).
Of course, the other measurements don't add up like that, normally being 18 or 20 to the next highest measure. If used like that, the calendar ends in either 3987 (for 18) or 4777 (for 20) That's roughly - I'm not gong to bother calculating exactly...
It's kind of like the Y2K thing ("Second Millennium ended at the end of 2000, not at it's start!")
The real problem is a computer counter that counted seconds from Jan 1, 1970 (http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/ctime/time_t/) which runs out on 2/7/2106 but we should have it fixed before that hits...
Anonymous says:
I thought the poles flipping happened quite regularly (as opposed to randomly). Wasn't that a way of dating some of the Atlantic sea floor?
Becca Stareyes says:
Welcome to my world. I volunteer as one of the Ask an Astronomers (curious.astro.cornell.edu). We have a 2012 page -- despite that, we keep getting a 'but are you sure' questions about once a month?
Nomen Nescio says:
actually, we seem to know quite a bit about how the planet's magnetic field flips:
http://scienceblogs.com/highlyallochthonous/2009/02/is_the_earths_magnetic_field_a.php
short summary --- the flips seem to be preceded by several thousand years of the field slowly declining down to a low threshold value, then flip, then quickly (well, quicker) build back up again. and for the past couple of centuries --- during which we've had really good data on the field strength --- it's been way above that threshold value. so we're probably not within several millennia of any flip, not that we'd much care if it happened.
Jon says:
So December 21, 2012 is sort of the Mayan equivalent of Y2K, so the only real problem is all the Mayan computers that didn't bother to store which Baktun it was.
Iavasechui says:
*Applauds*
CMZero says:
She blinded me with science!
And failed me in astronomy!
:D
Marc says:
The Earth reached drinking age just about everywhere except some backwards US states, a few places in India, and Micronesia.
http://tinyurl.com/mvodh
Didn't the Mayan calendar also have a 32,000 year cycle? Don't remember when it's supposed to end though, although it was sometime in the next 100 years or so. Wish I could remember my Mayan calendar class that I took at U of C oh-so-many-years-ago.
Milo says:
tl;dr
What's new?
BFaolan says:
Oddly enough, I knew about the 2012 end of cycle but wasn't aware that the baktun was so short.
I have been educated today!
(Given that I should be studying for finals, hopefully not the last time)
The Auld Grump says:
Heh - the argument about the Baktuns was way too familiar - I have tried to explain that to folks myself, with mixed success. In fact the only part of that I have not had to argue is the Galactic Plane, which just never came up. I would be happier if I did not think that folks will find a new 'End of the World Deadline' when 2013 rolls around, and we are still here. - The Auld Grump
Anonymous says:
Scienceblogs.co is great place for finding top notch debunking of cranks. Plus ya know science.
Phil Phlait, the Bad Astronomer blog also has this one is his perma archives.
Rockphed says:
On of the aforementioned fun things that happens when the poles flip is that the poles wander all over the place for a bit. I once saw a documentary on said pole-flipping where they found some rocks that, if memory serves, were laid down while the pole moved 60 relative degrees in a very short time. I don't remember what scale the time was in, but I want to say days. The scientific part of my brain(which is frequently annoyed with my artist girl-friend who doesn't get science at all, but she knows that she doesn't so she doesn't bring up this kind of thing) decries that as "Inconceivable" and insists that the scale is something like years.
Golux says:
Umm, the Mayan calendar has no end, it has repeating cycles. From what I hear, actual Mayans laugh about all the hoopla and figure that the proponents of this 2012 junk are off their rockers.
Frith Ra says:
Thank you. It's always nice to read someone else's stuff when they have their head stuck onto the correct portion of their anatomy. Recently the US has had a very silly series of "demonstrations" (called "tea parties" after the one in Boston back a few centuries ago). People were actually protesting the Obama tax program which will give them all tax breaks, unless they are very well off & can afford paying hefty taxes. But would they listen to reason? Not only no but ....
Pippaf says:
Well leaving the fact that the Earth and her siblings reached drinking age a few spins around the block ago, but who was ever stopped by mere legality anyway?
We seem to be heading out to a quieter part of the galactic neighbourhood. Remind you of something, hangover maybe?
AutumnEstuary says:
This is reminiscent of explaining to kids at work that no, actually, a Daddy Longlegs (harvestman) is not a spider- wrong order (Opiliones, not Araneae)- and certainly not the most poisonous spider in the world, look see, I'm picking it up and it's not biting me, really, stop squealing like that.
*sigh* I can forgive ten-year-olds their credulousness, but an adult thinking things like that is just sad.
Mike Stone says:
Wolfang Pauli, for whom the Pauli exclusion principle is named, was a notorious perfectionist.. the kind of guy who'd know off the top of his head that you only hyphenate "anal retentive" if you're using it as a conditional modifier.
He had a scale for rating things that weren't correct: 'Wrong', 'Completely wrong', and 'Not even wrong'. The last was reserved for ideas that were such a mess that treating them like intelligent arguments was a waste of time.
It sounds like your co-worker falls in the category of "not even wrong".
Ladyfox7oaks says:
Thank you! (I'm embarrassed to say that a few short years ago- I would have swallowed that stupidity lock, stock, and barrel.)
KimC. says:
This link is from another comic I read, called Arthur, King of Time and Space. Long story short, the cartoonist keeps putting Arthur et al through all sorts of different space loops, from the "original" time, to a space in the future time, to a present-day time. In this one, Nimue is the one next to Merlin on the couch in the present day time. :) I thought it was hilariously appropriate considering the content here today ;)
http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/1540.htm
Hroar says:
You certainly do get a lo t of comentary. Irony -chan!
Steve V. says:
Bryce, the computer clocks will typically overflow in the year 2038 - 29 years from how, not 2106. Most of us will be around for that. It'll be another Y2K.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem.
AlpineBob says:
I ddn't realize that we were bobbing about in the galactic plane. If "bobbing" is the word to use for a 80 million year cycle. We're oscillating, I take it? Very cool info!
Doomsday nuts can be quite amusing, as long as you remember they're insane and can't be reasoned with. I enjoyed your rant nonetheless - fun to read...
Nerrin says:
...until someone points it out to him on his blog.
Marc says:
You're right, he DOES look somewhat anxious in that last picture. Sort of a "who is this crazy person and why are they stalking me" sort of anxious. :-)
Corvid says:
You touched a meteorite, so where are your superpowers?
Acanous says:
I want to make a pun involving the words "Scott" and "Baktunla", but I just can't make the leap.
Frith Ra says:
@ Corvid: her super powers are drawing cute ogres & really cuddly rocs. have you ever tried to make an orc look both vicious & like something you'd give your grandmother? I'll have to try to catch up with this guy sometime, possibly with the kids in tow.
CMZero says:
@ Corvid & Frith: And also she can create other people with superpowers.
Quiller says:
If one is talking about scientific pet peeves, mine is Astrology. Ok sure, it served a vital job keeping the early Astronomers employed, but when someone wants to know my astrological sign in the process of getting to know me? Wait, you want to make a judgement about me based on what month I was born in? At least chinese astrology is based on the year, and I might have something in common with people of the same age as me, but if you want to know my birthday it should be because you want to help me celebrate it, not to see if I'm a typical .
M. Northstar says:
@AutumnEstuary: Well, Daddy Longlegs is also the name of a proper spider, although not a very poisonous one.
Katrika says:
A late comment about the mayan thing.
Alright. People like this make my brain hurt. Almost as much as flat earthers. A mean, they are an educated person living in america. They have the resources to look this stuff up. Why then, do they not only find it easier to listen to whatever crap people might tell them instead of using common sense, but to not listen when someone who acually knows what they're talking about tries to explain it?
Anonymous says:
Steve V.: I thought time_t was UNSIGNED not signed...
EVCelt says:
The Maya thing is a little more complicated than that. It's not just the baktun ending- in Maya mythology, the fourth world (the last one) ended on 12.19.19.17.19 (and was followed by a reset to 0.0.0.0.0 and the beginning of our world- the fifth one), and another 12.19.19.17.19 will occur on 12/20/2012... followed by the start of the 14th baktun the next day (13.0.0.0.0). Dr. Michael Coe (the eminent Yale Mesoamerican scholar) has stated that the Maya believed *something* would happen then- but not necessarily the end of the world. As a matter of fact, there are Maya long count dates that project thousands of years into the future.
Oh, and we may not know the *exact* connection between our calendar and the Maya Long Count- but most Mesoamerican scholars accept the Goodman-Martinez-Thompson correlation, which is the one that gets the 12/21/2012 = 13.0.0.0.0 connection.
Personally, I think that most of the hoo-hah about 2012 is nonsense...
Tamfang says:
Frith Ra, I suspect that the protest is not so much about the tax structure itself as about how it is to be spent.
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