Any Astronomy professors in here familiar with 2012?
I would really like the opinion or perspective of a college professor, preferably a university. What do you think of the dec 21, 2012 prophecy by the mayans, what does it mean to you, what do you believe will happen, what is your evidence or theory to support your perspective. A lot of people just like to dismiss the idea alltogether, but I think we should be paying very special attention to it, I dont think humanity will end on dec 21, I think we will go through some very BIG changes though.
Answer by Geoff G
Although I am currently retired, I did teach at a number of universities (University of Toronto, University of California Santa Barbara, University of Waterloo, McMaster University) years ago, specializing in anthropology, not astronomy. My M.A. and PhD. are in anthropology (University of Toronto), and my B.Sc. is in mathematics and physics (McGill University).
I have critically reviewed most of the predictions for 2012, and these are my conclusions:
I don’t expect anything out of the ordinary to happen in the year 2012, or specifically on the date December 21, other than the solstice, which happens every year.
None of the “predicted” happenings for 2012 hold up under close scrutiny. There is no Planet X or Nibiru. The Mayan calendar ends a cycle, but there were no predictions of the end of the world. The Sun doesn’t line up with the galactic centre; it’s 6 degrees off. No asteroids or comets are actually predicted to hit Earth.
All of this stuff was put together by sensationalists in order to promote their books and TV shows, and shamelessly promoted by the History Channel. Don’t take any of it seriously!
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
you don’t need to be an astronomy professor to know that a major cycle of the old mayan calendar ends in 2012. you also don’t need to be an astronomy professor to know that the mayans themselves didn’t predict one damned thing. all the so-called predictions are fiction.
the so-called alignment is a very approximate one at best, and happens twice a year. why should 2012 be any different?
this is nothing more than a cruel and cynical hoax. you should know better.
the onus is on you, btw, to provide evidence. no evidence is necessary to support the fact that nothing will happen.
(everybody around here is familiar with 2012. we’re so familiar we’re getting really tired of answering inane questions about it.)
The Mayans have the date of creation at 3114 BCE. They were wrong about that, so why would you expect them to have any special knowledge about 2012 CE? At any rate, the Mayan calendar is simply based on tracking the relative motion of the Sun and Venus with respect to the Earth, and nothing special is going to happen in 2012. The assertions about alignment with the galactic center and pole reversal are just nonsense.
I’m not an Astronomy professor, but I have done a lot of looking into these so-called predictions, and there is nothing to it.
We aren’t going to be at the center of the galaxy. The Solar System is only going to be 6 degrees off from alignment with the plane of the galaxy. Anyway, this happens every 26,000 years (7 times since man has been here and 173,076 times since Earth has existed), so I don’t think we have to worry too much about that.
The asteroid yellow alert for 2004 MN4 (later named Apophis) was canceled after additional points were calculated in its orbit and it isn’t coming by until 2029 and has no chance of hitting us then.
Planet X (Niburu) doesn’t exist and the people who were responsible for that story had it hitting us in 2003. When it didn’t happen, they just moved it out to 2012 to coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar.
The Mayan Calendar was done in cycles or ages. They ended an age in 2012, but they couldn’t even predict the end of their own civilization. The Spanish conquistadors came and destroyed their civilization hundreds of years ago, so if they planned to add any new ages, they never got it done.
A few people have thrown Nostradamus into the mix, but his predictions are so cryptic that no one ever knows what he meant, so they go and take a piece from one century or quatrain, add it to ones from completely different sections, and call it a prophecy.
Then there is the alleged polar shift or reversal. This has happened in the past, but it happens over thousands of years, not an abrupt 180 degree shift. The North magnetic pole has been moving about 10 km per year and we haven’t noticed, only the scientists who have been tracking it.
People have been predicting Doomsday every few years throughout history and they have never occurred.
1. The only Mayan ‘prophecy’ about the year we call 2012 is that the Long Count calendar would get to the end of a long count, and begin a new long count.
2. The concept of a New Age exists in many cultures and is often associated with calendars and astronomy. In our case, we use the Equinox position. When it moves to another constellation, we say it is a New Age. This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius (we are finishing the Age of Pisces which began a little over 2000 years ago). The Mayans also had ages associated with the Long Counts.
3. The Popol Vuh is the supposed Mayan sacred book that describes Mayan beliefs. It supposedly claims that at the end of an age, the gods (Mayan gods, I suspect) look upon their creation — how it evolved over the last age — and decide whether they are happy with it. If not, they have a new creation. No indication of what ‘being happy with it’ means. No idea of what a new creation entails.
However, there is no original Popol Vuh. The book that was described as the ‘original’ was supposedly taken from tribes living in the mountains, and was written with a Latin alphabet (i.e., the alphabet we use) not the Mayan alphabet.
And even that original is now lost, leaving us with a convenient translation done by Spanish Jesuits. Strange, the Popol Vuh has passages that are very similar to our Bible. Hmmm.
4. Astronomically, very little is going on on December 21, 2012, that has not occurred before. In other words, nothing special.
5. The Long Count calendar was not the common calendar used by the Mayan people. It was for special purposes. One of these purposes was astronomy. Mayan astronomers left writings describing events that are to take place after the year we call 2012. They wrote those dates using the Long Count calendar. Clearly, these Mayans believed that neither their calendar nor the world would end in 2012.
6. Every time there is a New Age (and with the number of cultures and religions we have on this planet, that happens often enough), there are lots of predictions by ‘New Age Scientists’. They rarely come true.
I’m not ascientist, but I’ve been looking into this for a few days and asked a few science/astronomy/physics (??) at this site http://www.universetoday.com, but many times they just make fun of you or arrogantly dismiss you, but they have not yet been able to provide the counter-arguments to the points I’ve learned are true.
The 3 points that one person finally confirmed include:
1) On 12/21/2012, Jupiter will complete another approx. 11.86 year cycle around the Sun, which Dr. Rollin Gillespie (NASA) claims to influence or cause the 11-yr solar activity cycle (i.e., spots, flares, CMEs).
2) On 12/21/2012, Saturn will be on the opposite side of the Sun, opposite Jupiter, also influencing solar activity.
3) On 12/21/2012, our solar system will align itself with the Milxy Way, as opposed to “hovering Over” it, where mass and gravity is greatest, and therefore will also affect our Sun’s activity. (However, Geoff above has a great site showing that the alignment is not exact, but it’s unclear if our solar system is over, in or through the Milxy Way).
What has not been confirmed is the following:
4) Where will Earth be in relation to Jupiter and the Sun? Does planet position matter in terms of CMEs trajectories, or do they just eject in every direction vs. in a linear manner? (Another site I found in one of these posts (http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Solar ) looks like the Earth will be in between the Sun and Jupiter, but I can’t quite tell…maybe someone else can? If so, that might not be too good, but unless our magnetic field is so weakened from the subtle shifting of the poles, I’m not sure that a CME can cross
into our atmosphere.)
5) CMEs aside, what are the effects of increased gravity from surrounding stars/planets in the Milxy Way to our planet and life systems?
CMEs are coronal mass ejections. Basically solar flares that are ejected out into space. It is the CMEs that supposedly may hit Earth, creating all sorts of catastrophes.
As for other threats I’ve heard about,such as a rogue planet passing by Earth and disrupting our magnetic fields/polar north and south, etc; and, just the Earth’s poles shifting north to south and south to north, as well as the Earth’s rotation reversing: there is no proof that anything terrible will happen if one event happens, while the other events are not proven.
For example, if there were a rogue plant to pass near Earth by 2012, then that planet’s presence in space, or it’s effects on other planets would have been noted by now, which it has not. Some point to a disturbance in Neptune’s orbit years ago, but that’s been explained already, and it wasn’t a rogue planet.
As for shifting of the poles: it happens all the time. It’s happening now, and it occurs slowly, so perhaps one day in the distant future, the United States will be the equivalent of Australia, and vica versa, but it will happen gradually.
As for the reverse rotation of the planet. Not possible apparently, since it has never happened in recorded physics or astronomy to any planet, given the laws of motion, etc.
If it did happen in the past, Earth would never have a chance to nurture life,since it would have continued to be a molten planet.
I didn’t give much detail about why the other events cannot or will not happen, but you can likely find the answers out in the internet, and likely at the site I listed above.