I've always been partial to terraced pyramids, but can I get the t-shirt without signing up?

I prefer to face this doomsday without formal commitment.

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Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin, wo soll ich mich erquicken? Bleib' ich hier, oder wünsch' ich mir Berg und Hügel auf den Rücken?
Bei der Welt ist gar kein Rat, und im Herzen steh'n die Schmerzen meiner Missetat, weil der Knecht den Herrn verleugnet hat.

Sure. Delivery in 2013 (give or take....)

Also, for the record, the "--Not!" part of the earlier quote was not me.

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Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all its pupils. Hector Berlioz

"To complete the picture all the photons can be seen to be synchronising friction on and off throughout the overall cone which itself is synchronised to the equal and opposite reaction of equilateral triangulation"... by a scientificator in ATM, too priceless to be lost to posterity.

Speaking of terraced pyramids, I am interested in the interpretation of the Great Seal of the USA, which has the year 1776 as the first terrace of a 13 story pyramid topped by the eye. On the Mayan Long Count - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_calendar#Long_Count - the K'atun is 7200 days, just short of twenty years. It is fairly close to the Jupiter-Saturn return.

Could 7200 days of the K'atun be an approximation to the Jupiter-Saturn period?

If 4 July 1776 is the date of the first terrace on the pyramid on the United States Dollar bill, what is the date of the top terrace measured in K'atun, and in Jupiter-Saturn orbits?

I will give the most serious answer I am capable of.

Go out and eat Chinese. Wait for the fortune cookie. Read it. I'm sure you'll find the answer there. Really.

[wanders off muttering "are these people real?" ...]

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Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin, wo soll ich mich erquicken? Bleib' ich hier, oder wünsch' ich mir Berg und Hügel auf den Rücken?
Bei der Welt ist gar kein Rat, und im Herzen steh'n die Schmerzen meiner Missetat, weil der Knecht den Herrn verleugnet hat.

Robert Tulip; If you are asking a question that could be conceived as answerable I would give it a go... The answer to your question; Is, NO. If you think that the US dollar bill has some answer.... go and lay down. That form of illogical thought process does not fit well here. I would look into posting this in 'Off Topic Babbling' It might get interesting there... Mark.

I'm surprised this whole thread hasn't been moved, as it's not Science and Astronomy Q&A at all, but, at the very least, OTB fodder. More like ATM fodder with it's 2012 references.

Fun? Sure. But it doesn't belong in Q&A.

Really? I think it's exactly what belongs in Q&A. "I heard this thing. I have a question about it. Am I right or wrong?" True, the OP has clarified (and misunderstood) a few things, but it remains a question about astronomy.

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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!"

astromark, you must have not read my post closely. I am asking scientific questions which have answers which I do not know, while also asking how these answers would map on to the best known example of a terraced pyramid, at an interesting intersection between astronomy and culture.

Is 7200 days of the K'atun an approximation to the Jupiter-Saturn period? It appears to be a 20 year estimate based on a 360 year day, which also closely matches the main planetary cycle of this period, Jupiter-Saturn at 19.85 years. I imagine it is possible that the Mayans started off using the Jupiter-Saturn cycle to mark the generations, and that 7200 days was their approximation of it.

I am not alleging any significance to the terraced pyramid on the US dollar bill and great seal. I am simply asking, is it true that the terraces match the K'atun of Mayan astronomy, and if so, what would be the dates of the top terrace from the various methods of calculation? The dollar bill has the year 1776 on the first terrace, which I assumed was a reference to American Independence Day. Terraced pyramids are of course a native american tradition, so it seems reasonable to ask if native american astronomy has any validity in interpreting this seal.

The three methods to calculate the date of the top terrace are
K'atun = 7200 days
Jupiter Saturn cycle =~ 7250 days
20 years = ~7305 days

I have now made an approximate calculation of dates of the top terrace on these three methods, with answers as follows.

K'atun: 4 July 1776 + 12 K'atun = 24 January 2013
Jupiter-Saturn: 4 July 1776 + 12 Jupiter Saturn cycles = 19 September 2014
Years: 4 July 1776 + 12 x 20 years = 4 July 2016

By these figures, which need checking, the approximate dates for the Eye above the pyramid are

Years: 4 July 2036
K'atun: 11 October 2032
Jupiter-Saturn: 26 July 2034

It could well be that none of this was intended in the design of America's Great Seal, but marking the first terrace with a date does seem to invite the question of whether the terraces are just the thirteen states or indicate dates.

I think we can safely dismiss any notion that the step pyramid on the Great Seal marks off Mayan time periods. The structure of the Mayan calendar was not deciphered by Westerners until the late nineteenth century.

Grant Hutchison

Err, folks, the pyramid on the US$ 1 bill is neither stepped nor terraced.

It may have tiers, resp. building layers, but those are not steps or terraces.

The Mayans had pyramids with very distinct steps/terraces. Hence the name.

@Robert Tulip

I took your question exactly as you asked it. My answer remains the same: fortune cookie.

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Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin, wo soll ich mich erquicken? Bleib' ich hier, oder wünsch' ich mir Berg und Hügel auf den Rücken?
Bei der Welt ist gar kein Rat, und im Herzen steh'n die Schmerzen meiner Missetat, weil der Knecht den Herrn verleugnet hat.

Thanks Grant, thanks Kleindoofy. So we are safe to assume no mayan cultural borrowing by the founding fathers. I came across this idea about the maya pyramid and the Great Seal as 20 year terraces in a novel, The Ezekiel Code. The author, Gary Val Tenuta, puts together an entertaining amalgam of wild ideas including this one. 21.12.2012 - 7200x12 days = ~6 June 1776, but that doesn't look to mean anything. The Ezekiel Code has a main plot device of a comet that could sneak up on us by secretly closing in on the other side of the sun only to appear at earth without warning. It shows how 2012 is likely to be a rich vein for mythology. Yes, the long count may end on 21.12.12, but nothing has any physical correlate with that date, especially crossing the galactic core. Nonetheless it is all fun imagination, and interesting to check how the ideas stack up against scientific observation.

It does look like gibberish. Sure about the units?

Is not the difference between June 6, 1776 and December 21, 2012: 86,395 days? About 236.5 years?

7200 days is about 20 years.

Hey, maybe you can get your money back.

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0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 ...

Really? Let's take a look at this, and why strength of belief has no merit as how things really ought to work.

As Q&A's subtitle so eloquently states, Q&A is about "a space/astronomy question." All 2012-related topics concern a new-age belief about a "great year of spiritual transformation, or alternatively, an apocalypse." (Wikipedia) They have absolutely nothing to do with either space or astronomy.

They do concern astrology, though...

Since 2012 was mentioned in Heinlein's Methuselah's Children, Obama better keep an eye peeled for his predecessor, Nehemiah Scudder, who's slated to establish a religious dictatorship in the US in 2012. "Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war!"



You're right about one thing - 2012-related topics do not belong in ATM, either, as that's reserved for "theor[ies] that go against the astronomical mainstream." Since 2012 topics concern, at best, astrology, not astronomy, they shouldn't go there, either.

So where to put it? How about in a section reserved for "non-space and astronomy topics." On BAUT, that section is OTB. Alternatively, if you wanted to make a logic game which poked fun at the illogic of astrology and/or 2012 topics, you could put it in Fun-n-Games. If you want to discuss a conspiracy theory related to 2012, it might even go there.

But it does not belong in the space/astronomy Q&A section.

Edit: By the way, in Alex Filipenko's (UC Berkley) Intro to Astronomy course, in Lesson 1 he warns that those who're unable to discern the difference between astronomy and astrology will fail.

Sorry for typo, I meant 21.12.2012 - 7200x12 days = ~ 6 June 1776. Have now corrected.

Kleindoofy first mentioned pyramids in this thread. As I had just read a comment about this I thought it worth a question in response, perhaps unwisely. The earlier galactic core discussion is a legitimate Q&A topic. The basis of the K'atun is a reasonable question in archaeoastronomy, and does lead to the legitimate question of whether there is an astronomical basis for the design of the great seal. That is not a question of astrology but of cultural history. If the answer is clearly no then that is a useful point to establish.

I don't think it's possible for a comet to sneak up on the Earth from the far side of the Sun. After all, the diameter of the Earth's orbit is about 300 million kilometres, and we traverse that diameter in 6 months. I doubt it would be possible for a comet to follow a trajectory that constantly kept the Sun between it and the Earth, though I'm happy for someone to try out the maths.

Sadly, it's not fun when people take this malarkey seriously and make decisions about their lives on the basis of it. I don't know whether you've read any of the threads which discussed a theory that a 2012-style disaster would happen back in 2003, but there were some desperately alarmed people whose lives were misery as a result of believing what they were told.

Aha! Finally! An astronomy question is this otherwise non-astronomy astrological OT Bunch of babble!

Seriously...

Put in mathematical terms:

Ellipse: x²/a² + y²/b² = 1

Eccentricity: e=sqrt(1-(^b/_a)²)

Polar Coordinates: r=a(1-e²)/(1+ecosθ)

Where r is the radius of the ellipse from one focus, F, and θ is the angle measured from line between the focus to the a end of the ellipse, to the radius.

Thus, we're looking for two ellipses with the same focus whereby both objects orbiting the sun are always along that same radius.

There is one and only one case where this is true: when the elliptical orbits of both objects are identical. Otherwise, it's clearly evident from Keplerian area sweeps that no other solution exists.

There remains another orbit, also a conic section, which might fit the bill: a hyperbola. As you may know, both the circle and the ellipse have a cutting plane which is less than the angle of the cone, while the hyperbola has a cutting plane that's greater than the angle of the cone. A parabola is when the cutting angle is paralle to the side of the cone.

Hyperbola: x²/a² - y²/b² = 1

However, it's again easy to see that there is no way for both objects to be consistantly colinear with the focus (Sun).

Thus, unless the object is going fast enough so as to transit the distance between the Sun and the Earth in very short order, before the Earth transits a distance equal to the sun's apparent diameter (and thereby reducing the geometry to an approximate triangle), there is no orbit which would allow the object to "sneak up" on us while being shielded in the sun's disk.

wow, that is basically the exact same premise that Nancy Lieder came up with why we could not see Planet X, it is "hiding behind the sun".

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Any comments in glorious red are to be considered in ModeratorMode.


善數, 不用籌策 (shàn shù, bù yòng chóu cè)
He who is good at counting, uses no counting tools
“A good scientist has freed himself of concepts and keeps his mind open to what is”
道德經, 二十七 (dào dé jīng, 27)

Robert Tulip and, tusenfem .. Please look at the posting from, mugaliens. Read it carefully.. understand what it is telling you. These are facts... However,.
I will concede that as a body, asteroid or comet nears the sun its path can be altered so as to course it to be in conflict with Earth. It would not 'sneak' up on us. We have in place some equipment that is looking for just this sort of thing... We are constantly looking at objects of interest. The wording of the possible impending 'what if' event. Is scare mongering. You should think about that before you post in here. These board's are read by impressionable young minds.

Yes I did:

This was simply an allegorical reference to the Mayans (who had genuine terraced pyramids), made in jest. I could easily have written "I've always been partial to Mayans" while conveying the same message.

How foolish of me to forget that "pyramids" is one of the 'activate woowoo minds' trigger keywords. I humbly apologize to the clear thinking BAUT members.

I'm sure anybody without a major ATM/CT/etc. agenda on their shoulder noticed the humor.

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Ach, mein Sinn, wo willst du endlich hin, wo soll ich mich erquicken? Bleib' ich hier, oder wünsch' ich mir Berg und Hügel auf den Rücken?
Bei der Welt ist gar kein Rat, und im Herzen steh'n die Schmerzen meiner Missetat, weil der Knecht den Herrn verleugnet hat.

Now you've done it... Next thing you know, we'll be wamwoozled!

Well, since you put it that way, ok. But just this once! Do it again and I'll... I'll... Well, I'll... Hmph! Just, hmph!

I noticed. I guess I started the whole thing with references to pseudo-Mayans rebuilding the world in megaliths, but didn't mean for it to take the thread off in other directions. However, it was a bit self-inspiring. With one positive response, I am now sorely tempted to go into the imprinted T-shirt/loincloth business.

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Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all its pupils. Hector Berlioz

"To complete the picture all the photons can be seen to be synchronising friction on and off throughout the overall cone which itself is synchronised to the equal and opposite reaction of equilateral triangulation"... by a scientificator in ATM, too priceless to be lost to posterity.

For interest, here is a picture of planetary positions in 2012-13. The solstice is the point where the sun crosses line 10.

Attached Images

2012.JPG (100.8 KB, 26 views)

and what does it mean?

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Hi Captain Swoop. Congratulations to you and other new Bautforum moderators on your appointment.

This planetary diagram for 2012-13 is just a way of providing empirical information about the shape of the cosmos on 21 December 2012, in view of the claims about the Mayan Long Count. It rounds out the question I asked in the OP on whether there are any astronomical vectors that support the New Agist theories. There are not. There are some nice conjunctions in 2012 between Jupiter and Venus, and between Mars and Saturn, but no surprising grand planetary alignments.

Speaking of 2012,I distictly recall almost 3 years ago Fox News channel said there was avery large meteor 2 pass within earths orbit (with possible collision) and if it comes close enough it will be in the chute and boomerang around on an impact course 26 years later. This was stated in their scrolling news typed at bottom of the screen. Just can't recall for sure if it read 2012 or 2011. After that I never heard nothing more...was that a mistake or isn't it news for awhile.

creativedreams; Treat it with the contempt it deserves. Its nonsense.
Nibiru is Jupiter. What one race of primitives observed two thousand years ago does not in any way bear credence to this ridiculous idea. If a large enough body to disrupt life on Earth were in fact heading this way for a 2012 rondavous... We would know by now.
It would need to have some considerable mass.
Any object entering this Solar system of that sort of mass would not go un-noticed.
It is not being kept from you... I would love to be the astronomer who found this object... short lived my glory might be... NO.
Put this hideous idea to rest. It is not true.

I think your referring to Apophis? Planned to swing by in 2029, and then possibly again in 2036.

Recently Association of Space Explorers released a report to the UN regarding this type of threat. The report can be viewed here (PDF Format. 1MB).

this is probably what it was. Thanks brink!