November 1, 2009
Apocalypse Now …or Not
While reading Bridget Gegg’s paper about the supposed apocalypse of 2012, I started to feel the tingle of desire to know more about when the end could be. I have always been interested in the ancient doomsday predictions of both the Mayans and the Aztecs. I am even more drawn to the somewhat more recent works of Nostradamus. The lone truth we may rely on is the age old saying, “Only time will tell.”
In Gegg’s paper Doomsday 2012, the Mayans calendar is explained in great detail. She states that the calendar is started at 0.0.0.0.0, and that each day is a whole number in the far right place until the number nineteen is reached. At that point a one takes place of the second spot in the sequence and the right most place starts again at zero (e.g. 0.0.0.0.19 becomes 0.0.0.1.0). She further states that thirteen and twenty are very important numbers that are the roots of the Mayan numeric system. This is where some experts choose the interpret thirteen or 13.0.0.0.0 to be the end of the calendar, and since that day happens to fall on December 21, 2012 it has been marked doomsday. The conclusion stated previously leaves much room for skepticism since the number system relies on both thirteen and twenty as important roots, it could easily be when the calendar reaches nineteen or 19.0.0.0.0 in its left most space. Furthermore what tells us that because the calendar ends that the world does also? Each year we all get a chance to pick out a new calendar and it feels like more of a beginning than an end (Gegg ¶3). I must admit that my previous views on the end of the world are changing rapidly as I read this paper. I had always believed that the Mayans were a very complex culture with time telling and calculation skills far beyond their time. I still revere their skills as such, but I am forced to look at their calendar in a different light. I had no idea that their number system was base twenty. I had always thought it was thirteen. With that information alone I question the relevance of thirteen in the left most place, I now would interpret that as being no different than the number nine or sixteen in the same spot. Furthermore if each place is moved to the left only after it reaches nineteen, why wouldn’t all of the places be filled with nineteen (e.g. 19.19.19.19.19) before the calendar would “end.” The “end” is another good point to question, why wouldn’t this calendar roll over just the same as all others have and simply start a new time period? The deeper I delve into this subject the less mythical and more publicity stunt it becomes in my mind.
Gregg also brings up another great point: the “Y2K” scare of the late 1990’s. Y2K was a mass media frenzy claiming that the world just might not run the same as it did the day (December 31, 1999) before, threatening that power grids would no longer function, and that banks would have nothing more than paper to compute balances and transactions. This situation arose from the lack of foresight during the programming of most computer software. The problem was that as 1999 came to and end we rolled into year 2000 all computers would think that it was year 1900 instead of 2000 because most programs used only a two place date for year instead of the four places it would take to state the full year. This was done partially out of laziness and partially to save precious space on early computer hard drives. She states “As 12:00 a.m. January 1, 2000 approached people were stocking up on food and weapons, because people were expecting us to have to resort back to our barbarian ways without our technology. But when the clock struck midnight no problems had arisen. Nothing had happened. Y2K had been avoided.” (Gegg ¶6). I remember this event like yesterday. Our family was visiting our good family friends and having a New Years Eve party. The months leading up this consisted of our mothers stocking up on canned foods and water while our fathers made sure that the firearms were ready and hiding large sums of cash and other valuables within our homes. Banks were one of the biggest concerns in programming since computers controlled all of our money. I digress; we all watched and waited almost more in horror than with excitement as we had in previous years. As the clock struck twelve the ball dropped and the noisemakers scared the dogs, just like every year before. Y2K was almost forgotten as instantly as the ball dropped. It was a large-scale scare that had no real impact in the end. One might equate this next proposed catastrophic event to be nothing more than another Y2K type media blitz.
I now must give up my somewhat childish thoughts and accept that the world most likely is not coming to a rapid end. Once I understood more about the Mayan’s calendar my previously uneducated beliefs quickly crumbled around what no longer seemed to be concrete. The coming of doomsday can now easily be placed along side the Y2K scare in my mind. My choice to return school is now also reaffirmed since the world probably will not be ending. I must however admit that I am somewhat disappointed that I can’t just run out and plunge myself into debt for a mansion, plane, 5 cars and have all responsibility expunged at the end of 2012.
Gegg, Bridget. “Doomsday 2012.” Writers of the World (2009) 1 Nov. 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment