We know. However, I don't think the equinox is all that difficult to calculate if you're paying attention.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Again, I disagree (whether or not you "know").

And actually, it is a solstice to which the 2012 date refers, not an equinox.
I misspoke.
None the less, as I said, and IMO, calculating such precise dates so far in advance is no small feat, especially when dealing with the spherical geomtery inherent in figuring precessional ages on Earth over thousands of years.

No matter, I really don't think there is a conspiracy involved here and so I leave it here...

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Well,

I do have some things to say about the end of the mayan calender in december 2012 but I assume it would be against the forum rules as it is HDDesign related, so I won't

Actually it's a snap. The precession of the Earth's axis of rotation was well-known to early civilizations, if only through how the north celestial pole precessed through the various constellations. By 1000 CE such things had been nailed down by just unaided visual astronomy.

Too bad (but not unexpected that) the astrologers once left behind never caught up with the whole precession thing, thus resulting in their "zodiac signs" being 2000 years out of whack.

Meanwhile there's nothing extraordinary about the particular date other than it's yet another Winter Solstice. There's no "special alignment" whatsoever. See my previous post on this.

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It takes 72yrs for a precessional shift of 1deg.
2100 to 2200yrs to observe a precessional shift from one constellation to another.
Some 25000yrs for a full precessional cycle through the 12 constellations.
This is the mythological "great year" so oft found in ancient "astrological" texts.
It just strikes me as no small feat to calculate accurately, and so far in advance, a "sun standstill" like this.

Well that and the fact that it jives or coincides with other "end of the age" scenarios relegated to mythology and or astrology.

Yeah, it's interesting how one can discern "calendar wars" throught the historical timestream; some being solar, others being lunar, and all supposedly in accordance with some god's law, and now both are surely innaccurate.



Right, although I didn't think there'd be a "special alignment" of any sort.

Just another New Age...

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

Case in point:
2012 and the "END OF DAYS" draws on various texts; Christian, Jewish, apocryphal, Mayan.

Of course, there are other texts too, some much older, involving such mythological "great years" and the changing of Ages and their harbingers.

It appears everyone is getting on the 2012 bandwagon!

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"Where the telescope ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two has the greater view?" - Hugo

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Churchill

And yet, in 2013, instead of learning their lesson, they'll just jump on the next bandwagon. It never ends, does it?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

In that link the fact he started using the "Incredible Bible Codes" put me off oh and the fact he thinks he knows the time of the end of the world. I thought it was common knowledge among Christians that nobdy knows the end of the world as it will come like a theif in the night. So the guy is actually going against his own religion by saying he does know the time. Thats about as religious as i'm prepared to get on these boards. On another note in 2012 my Son will start school! Thats about it in my life!!

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"Attack the idea, not the person" Posted by a Moderator.
Useful words around here indeed!!

Look at it this way: They'll be right some day. It just may take half a million years.

Heck, I'd say TEOTW won't be for a couple of billion. How long will homo sapiens last? That's another question entirely.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Yes. I was thinking along the lines of the end of mankind via asteroid, comet, plague, war, pollution, GW, ice age, genetic breakdown, etc.

TEOTW will require a much larger event if prior to the Sun becoming a red giant, say a rogue Mars-sized planetoid.

If we still haven't moved off the planet by half a million years P.N.*, we would in all likelyhood have long since killed ourselves off.

*Post-Now

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Not everyone. I know I'm standing on the ground laughing my...head off.

Then there's Phil, and a host of other real astronomers and scientists.

As well as that group of people who still have good sense.

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I sometimes forget that I am on a SCIENCE forum and just cannot throw around numbers (like "half a million") - someone will take me to task!

Anyhow, how about 3000-4000 years?

It appears everyone is getting on the 2012 bandwagon!

Where have I heard this before?

Oh yes -
"Everyone is getting on the Planet X bandwagon!"
"Everyone is getting on the Y2K is the End of the World bandwagon!"
"Everyone is getting on the Intelligent Design bandwagon!" (or "everyone is jumping off the evolution bandwagon!")
"Everyone is jumping on the cold fusion bandwagon!"
"Everyone is jumping on the [power lines cause cancer | microwaves cause cancer | vaccines cause autism | nutritional deficiencies cause AIDS | fluoridated water is a brainwashing trick] bandwagon!"
"Everyone is jumping on the 9/11 conspiracy bandwagon!"
"Everyone is jumping on the Comet Halley will kill us all bandwagon!"
"Everyone is jumping on the Apollo hoax bandwagon!"
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I haven't jumped on any of those bandwagons, and I'm not jumping on yours.

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"Slapping a guy on the head is just as funny now as it was eighty years ago."