Mayan Predictions: What Did & Didn't They Forecast?

  • Thread starter jreelawg
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In summary, the conversation covers a list of things the speaker read about on the internet and is skeptical about, including the solar system's rotation around the galaxy, eclipses, the existence of a black hole in the center of the galaxy, and gamma ray bursts. The speaker also questions how these topics relate to the Mayans, who did not have knowledge of these concepts. The conversation also discusses the Mayans' ability to predict eclipses and their supposed predictions related to black holes. However, it is concluded that the Mayans did not make these predictions and the only prediction they could have possibly made is about a lunar eclipse.
  • #1
jreelawg
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What did they predict, and what didn't they.

Here are a list of things I read on the web that I am skeptical about. I don't no where to find reliable sources.

1. how long it would take for the solar system to rotate around the galaxy.

2. eclipses, including one that actually happened in 1999.

3. the existence of a black hole in the center of the galaxy.

4. gamma ray bursts come from the black hole, and when major bursts would happen.
 
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  • #2
I don't see how this relates to the Mayans, who obviously had no knowledge of black holes.

jreelawg said:
What did they predict, and what didn't they.

Here are a list of things I read on the web that I am skeptical about. I don't no where to find reliable sources.

1. how long it would take for the solar system to rotate around the galaxy.

Sun's galactic rotation period: 220 million years (negative rotation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way

2. eclipses, including one that actually happened in 1999.

http://just****inggoogleit.com/" [Broken]

3. the existence of a black hole in the center of the galaxy.

It doesn't take an astro physicist to expect to find a super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way...just a basic understanding of gravity and space. In fact, I would be surprised if it's possible for a galaxy to form WITHOUT a black hole forming at it's center.

Anyway here's one of the first articles that popped up on google
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1102_051102_black_hole.html

4. gamma ray bursts come from the black hole, and when major bursts would happen.

A black hole is defined as a body that is massive enough that light cannot escape. A gamma ray burst is light. Therefore I do not think black holes produce gamma ray bursts...this should come from very massive stars. Someone more knowledgeable may be able to clarify this.
 
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  • #3
jreelawg said:
What did they predict, and what didn't they.
The ancient Mayans made none of these predictions. They are all modern and attributed retroactively to the Mayans.
 
  • #4
jreelawg said:
4. gamma ray bursts come from the black hole, and when major bursts would happen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst

Though you may want to check the references to make sure they're legit.


And as stated above, those are not predictions that the Mayans made.

If you want to know about the predictions that they made, here is the best source I could find outside of a peer-reviewed source, mostly because I couldn't find anything that was peer-reviewed on the subject (maybe a reason for that? :p)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_millenarianism
 
  • #5
The only one the Mayans could have had any hope of knowing anything about is #2.
 
  • #6
Two civilizations monitored the moon and sun accurately enough to make solar eclipse predictions: the Greeks and the Chinese. The Mayans didn't.
 
  • #7
ideasrule said:
Two civilizations monitored the moon and sun accurately enough to make solar eclipse predictions: the Greeks and the Chinese. The Mayans didn't.
The babylonians were probably the first to study eclipses and discovered the 18year cycle in the C7 bce.
 
  • #8
Are you sure they didn't predict eclipses though? This is thrown around like common knowledge.

"Ornate wall carvings are actually astonishingly detailed calendars that can still be used to predict eclipses and other astral events."

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/spirits/html/body_maya.html [Broken]
 
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  • #9
junglebeast said:
It doesn't take an astro physicist to expect to find a super massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way...just a basic understanding of gravity and space. In fact, I would be surprised if it's possible for a galaxy to form WITHOUT a black hole forming at it's center.

What I'm reading is that they had a name for a gigantic monster in the center of the galaxy that was associated with death. This is fairly accurate in a metaphorical sense, but probably not what they meant.
 
  • #10
jreelawg said:
Are you sure they didn't predict eclipses though? This is thrown around like common knowledge.

"Ornate wall carvings are actually astonishingly detailed calendars that can still be used to predict eclipses and other astral events."

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/spirits/html/body_maya.html [Broken]

They did predict lunar eclipses, but not solar eclipses. The difference is enormous. Earth's shadow is many times wider than the Moon, so if you can calculate that the Moon is within a few degrees of being exactly opposite the Sun, that's good enough; a lunar eclipse would almost certainly take place. It doesn't even matter where on Earth you are because as long as the Moon is above the horizon, lunar eclipses can be seen from just about any place on the planet.

On the other hand, the Sun and the Moon are almost exactly the same size as seen from Earth: both are around half a degree in diameter. That means that if the error in the Moon's predicted position is more than a quarter of a degree and the error bar on the Sun's position is similar, there would be little chance of telling whether an eclipse is going to happen. It gets worse than this. Move 100 km from the eclipse path and you see no total eclipse; move a few hundred km more and you'd see no eclipse whatsoever. This means that to predict a solar eclipse that can actually be seen, and thereby confirm the prediction, the prediction will have to account for the changing orbital speed of the Moon and the Sun, the observer's latitude and longitude, and the parallax on the Moon's position. To know the latter, Earth's diameter would have to be calculated at least roughly. The Greeks and Chinese could do all of this two thousand years ago, but it's hard to imagine how a civilization that doesn't even know how to smelt can make observations of the required accuracy. That the Mayans accomplished as much as they did is impressive, but they probably couldn't predict solar eclipses occurring in their own time, much less thousands of years later.
 
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  • #12
junglebeast said:
A black hole is defined as a body that is massive enough that light cannot escape. A gamma ray burst is light. Therefore I do not think black holes produce gamma ray bursts...this should come from very massive stars. Someone more knowledgeable may be able to clarify this.
From http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/compact_binary.html
Unlike gamma-ray emitting radio pulsars which shine on their own, there are a large number of galactic neutron stars and black holes which owe their gamma-ray light to the effect of a companion star. Matter from the normal star in a binary system can be caught by the gravitational field of the compact star. When this matter falls onto the neutron star or black hole, a large amount of energy is released. In fact, this process of accretion is more efficient at releasing energy than even nuclear processes.
 
  • #14
Did the mayans even know that we existed in a 'galaxy' If they did then I'm a QUITE impressed... and makes me wonder... how come we have made very small progress... I mean like the mayans existed around 2000 BC - like 1000AD right?
 
  • #15
Sorry! said:
Did the mayans even know that we existed in a 'galaxy'
Of course they didn't. But people sure can make a lot of money by claiming that they did.
 
  • #16
ideasrule said:
They did predict lunar eclipses, but not solar eclipses. The difference is enormous.
You're right - when I saw the OP, I thought lunar eclipses, but should have been clued-in by the single random date that the supposed prediction must have been about solar eclipses. Certainly solar eclipse prediction would have been far beyond their capability.
 
  • #17
jreelawg said:
What I'm reading is that they had a name for a gigantic monster in the center of the galaxy that was associated with death. This is fairly accurate in a metaphorical sense, but probably not what they meant.
"fairly accurate in a metaphircal sense" is completely useless when it comes to connecting an ancient text to a real scientific phenomena. This is very much like the Nostradamus "predictions" - they are so vague and symbolic that any similarity with real phenomena can only be coincidental.
 
  • #18
I strongly suspect that the so-called amazing accuracy of the Mayan calendar is just the collective fantasy of a coterie of math-blind archaeologists.
 
  • #19
Wooeologists painting bullseyes around the darts would be my guess. 'A bad thing involving fire may someday happen' is not a convincing example of prophesy. Vaguity is the bread and butter of all soothayers. Toss in a few bizarre, and equally vague images, and you have . . . magic. Give me something useful, like tomorrow's powerball numbers. It seems the prophets always complain 'the spirits do not permit such 'knowledge'. Indeed, the 'spirits' appear unable to impart any testable predictions of the future. James Randi anyone?
 
  • #20
I don't think the Mayans had powerball.

The interesting thing is that even if a "prediction" is accurate, we can never know if it was coincidence. If a "psychic" gave you tomorrow's powerball numbers, it would be attributed to chance.

How many powerball winners claim to be psychic? Does anyone have any idea? If there were many very rich psychic people - people who are able to do better than the odds would suggest - would we know, or would we chalk it up to chance?
 
  • #21
russ_watters said:
they are so vague and symbolic that any similarity with real phenomena can only be coincidental.

It can only be assumed to be coincidental.
 
  • #22
Ivan Seeking said:
I don't think the Mayans had powerball.
No, they had the ball game instead.

The ball game: http://www.ballgame.org/main.asp

The Hero Twins myth: http://www.mythweb.com/teachers/why/other/hero_twins.html
 
  • #23
You are missing the point, ivan. I agree a single prediction is useless, two in a row - priceless.
 
  • #24
Actually, I think it is more to the point to say the Mayans made no predictions (of the type being discussed here) at all! No need to quibble over whether being right once was lucky - they never played the game being attributed to them!
 
  • #25
Chronos said:
You are missing the point, ivan. I agree a single prediction is useless, two in a row - priceless.

On what do you base your implicit claim that any genuine psychic must be 100% accurate and 100% repeatable?

Would two tests be sufficient to say that psychic events happen, or would it take three, or four? How unlikely does an event have to be before chance can be definitively ruled out?

The point was that in my opinion, there could still be a signal below the noise. I'm not saying there is but rather that we have no way to know - that no definitive test can be cited. Assuming for a moment that they do occur, if true psychic events are rare, even people with those abilities may not be aware of it. Maybe it happens to everyone but only a few times in a lifetime? How do we rule out rare and random psychic events? I don't know if it is even possible to falsify that claim [possibility].

If psychic abilities exist and can be called to task, extensive testing shows at most only a very slight effect, barely detectable, and only with meta-analysis. But this says nothing of random events. In fact it may be that the data would support this possibility.
 
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  • #26
russ_watters said:
Actually, I think it is more to the point to say the Mayans made no predictions (of the type being discussed here) at all! No need to quibble over whether being right once was lucky - they never played the game being attributed to them!

I don't know enough about it to have an opinion, but we'll go with that for now unless someone has evidence to the contrary.
 
  • #27
Just as an aside, the 2012 prediction is not scientifically meaningful. The alignment of the sun with the galactic center is a line of sight event with earth. To assign it any causal affect implies the Earth has a priveledged position.
 
  • #28
Chronos said:
Just as an aside, the 2012 prediction is not scientifically meaningful. The alignment of the sun with the galactic center is a line of sight event with earth. To assign it any causal affect implies the Earth has a priveledged position.
Correct. From a galactic point of view, the solar system is nowhere near the galactic plane; we are currently about 26 parsecs from it. (See http://arxiv.org/abs/0903.4206.) Crossing the galactic plane may have caused some of the mass extinctions in the past. Fortunately, on Dec. 21, 2012 we will still be about 26 parsecs from the galactic plane.

So, what did the Mayans predict for Dec. 21, 2012?
  1. Crossing the galactic plane.
    The Mayans did not have telescopes. They could not have known that the solar system is a part of the Milky Way. Besides, the solar system is not crossing the galactic plane any time soon, not even any time soon in a cosmological sense of soon.
  2. Planetary alignment.
    Whether Mayan numerology could predict planetary orbits is debatable. If they did have that capability, they would not have predicted a planetary alignment on the date in question because no such alignment will occur.
  3. Pole flip.
    The Mayans had stone age technology. They did not know that magnetism existed. They did not know that the Earth had a magnetic field. Besides, pinpointing to a specific date something that takes several decades to transpire is just silly.
  4. The end of the world as we know it.
    The Spaniards destroyed every piece of Mayan writing they could find. They didn't get everything, and some of what is left talks about events past Dec. 21 2012.
  5. Winter solstice.
    Check. Mayan numerology could predict lunar eclipses, the equinoxes, and the solstices with amazing accuracy.
Hey! One out of five ain't bad.
 
  • #29
Ivan Seeking said:
On what do you base your implicit claim that any genuine psychic must be 100% accurate and 100% repeatable?

Would two tests be sufficient to say that psychic events happen, or would it take three, or four? How unlikely does an event have to be before chance can be definitively ruled out?

The point was that in my opinion, there could still be a signal below the noise. I'm not saying there is but rather that we have no way to know - that no definitive test can be cited. Assuming for a moment that they do occur, if true psychic events are rare, even people with those abilities may not be aware of it. Maybe it happens to everyone but only a few times in a lifetime? How do we rule out rare and random psychic events? I don't know if it is even possible to falsify that claim [possibility].

If psychic abilities exist and can be called to task, extensive testing shows at most only a very slight effect, barely detectable, and only with meta-analysis. But this says nothing of random events. In fact it may be that the data would support this possibility.

Psychic phenomena have been studied for more than a century. No good evidence has been found.
I know that absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, but if those phenomena existed, we should have more than a few meta analysis to show.
 
  • #30
My understanding of the Mayan's and 2012 is that they simply perceived it as the end of an age or era. They expected things would change, maybe dramatically but not the end of the world.

On the other hand there seems to be a confluence of predicted events around that date besides the Mayan calendar. Whether they are real predictions is another question. I am not convinced that Nostradamus made a prediction that actually includes that date. I am not sure about Caycee either. Other things that seem to be happening that could come to a head then: shifting of the Earth's magnetic field (doubtful), a solar maximum will be near that date, the current pope may be the last in a well documented prediction that names all the popes and predicts catastrophic events after the last one and he is old. I think there are some others that I can't remember too.
 
  • #31
fillindablank said:
My understanding of the Mayan's and 2012 is that they simply perceived it as the end of an age or era.
The date simply clicks round to 13.0.0.0.0 so it's no different from Y2K
Probably rather less so, since very few computers use Mayan dates - and the ones that do will presumably handle all the digits!
 
  • #32
fillindablank said:
... the current pope may be the last in a well documented prediction that names all the popes and predicts catastrophic events after the last one and he is old. I think there are some others that I can't remember too.

St Malachy prophecy is probably a forgery perpetrated in the XVI century.
The mottos of all the popes until the 230th, Urban VII are perfect matches. When this pope died, the prophecy was made public and the motto of the 231th pope should be "De antiquitate urbis" (From the antic city).
One of the candidates was the cardinal of Civitavecchia (old city) and he became pope Gregory XIV. We don't know how much the revelation of the prophecy has contributed to his election, but we can wonder about it.
The subsequent mottos are very vague, like the quatrains of Nostradamus, so they fit anyone you want.
 
  • #33
CEL said:
Psychic phenomena have been studied for more than a century. No good evidence has been found.
I know that absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, but if those phenomena existed, we should have more than a few meta analysis to show.

Three hold-outs that I see are:

First, the formal analysis assumes that, if it exists, psychic phenomena can be controlled. I see no reason to assume that it can be controlled and tested on demand. Some of the more impressive stories come with dramatic events, such a murder, of the loss of a love one by some other means - events of extreme personal signficance. Does siginficance matter? How can we know? The tests to date show that if it exists, it cannot be controlled, but doesn't exclude the possibility that phenomena exist that can't be controlled.

Secondary to this are a few stories about psychics assisting with police investigations that were pretty impressive. Debunkers attribute these stories to chance or cleverness, but I have never seen a debunker find a dead body that the police couldn't.

Next, I believe the meta-analysis includes the bulk of serious experimentation to date. If indeed there is a trace signal for something real, that would still be interesting. We did have one paper published in the journal, The Foundations of Phyisics, that references known anomalous results as a fact. Interestingly, I believe the referenced results were only published in the JSE, which is not acceptable here as a journal reference, so at best the evidence for a signal is very weak.

We are way off topic here but I will clean things up later.
 
  • #34
Ivan Seeking said:
Three hold-outs that I see are:

First, the formal analysis assumes that, if it exists, psychic phenomena can be controlled. I see no reason to assume that it can be controlled and tested on demand. Some of the more impressive stories come with dramatic events, such a murder, of the loss of a love one by some other means - events of extreme personal signficance. Does siginficance matter? How can we know? The tests to date show that if it exists, it cannot be controlled, but doesn't exclude the possibility that phenomena exist that can't be controlled.
Anecdotal evidence serves as a clue to the existence of a phenomenon, not as hard evidence.
Secondary to this are a few stories about psychics assisting with police investigations that were pretty impressive. Debunkers attribute these stories to chance or cleverness, but I have never seen a debunker find a dead body that the police couldn't.
Those stories are told by the psychics themselves. To my knowledge, no serious police department has ever called a psychic to aid an investigation.
Next, I believe the meta-analysis includes the bulk of serious experimentation to date. If indeed there is a trace signal for something real, that would still be interesting. We did have one paper published in the journal, The Foundations of Phyisics, that references known anomalous results as a fact. Interestingly, I believe the referenced results were only published in the JSE, which is not acceptable here as a journal reference, so at best the evidence for a signal is very weak.
Except for faulty protocols, no sign has ever been found above chance.
 
  • #35
More than likelythis is the language of an assertion of 'fact'. It asserts that the reliable probability of a certain statement being true is greater than 50%.
 
<h2>1. What did the Mayans predict would happen in 2012?</h2><p>The Mayans did not actually predict anything specific for the year 2012. The idea that the Mayan calendar ended in 2012 and signaled the end of the world was a misinterpretation of their calendar by modern-day people.</p><h2>2. Did the Mayans predict any major events in history?</h2><p>There is no evidence that the Mayans predicted any major events in history. Some people have claimed that the Mayans predicted events such as the rise of Adolf Hitler and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but these are baseless claims with no evidence to support them.</p><h2>3. What did the Mayans believe about the end of the world?</h2><p>The Mayans did not believe in an apocalyptic end of the world. Their calendar simply marked the end of one cycle and the beginning of another, similar to how our calendar ends on December 31st and begins again on January 1st.</p><h2>4. Did the Mayans have any advanced knowledge or technology?</h2><p>There is no evidence that the Mayans had any advanced knowledge or technology beyond what was typical for their time period. The idea that they had advanced knowledge of astronomy or mathematics is a Eurocentric myth that diminishes the intelligence and accomplishments of indigenous cultures.</p><h2>5. Are there any legitimate predictions made by the Mayans?</h2><p>The Mayans were skilled astronomers and developed a complex calendar system, but there is no evidence that they made any legitimate predictions about future events. Any claims of Mayan predictions are usually based on misinterpretations or fabrications.</p>

1. What did the Mayans predict would happen in 2012?

The Mayans did not actually predict anything specific for the year 2012. The idea that the Mayan calendar ended in 2012 and signaled the end of the world was a misinterpretation of their calendar by modern-day people.

2. Did the Mayans predict any major events in history?

There is no evidence that the Mayans predicted any major events in history. Some people have claimed that the Mayans predicted events such as the rise of Adolf Hitler and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but these are baseless claims with no evidence to support them.

3. What did the Mayans believe about the end of the world?

The Mayans did not believe in an apocalyptic end of the world. Their calendar simply marked the end of one cycle and the beginning of another, similar to how our calendar ends on December 31st and begins again on January 1st.

4. Did the Mayans have any advanced knowledge or technology?

There is no evidence that the Mayans had any advanced knowledge or technology beyond what was typical for their time period. The idea that they had advanced knowledge of astronomy or mathematics is a Eurocentric myth that diminishes the intelligence and accomplishments of indigenous cultures.

5. Are there any legitimate predictions made by the Mayans?

The Mayans were skilled astronomers and developed a complex calendar system, but there is no evidence that they made any legitimate predictions about future events. Any claims of Mayan predictions are usually based on misinterpretations or fabrications.

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