In late December, a Time explains video was devoted to the Mayan calendar and the theories of the apocalypse and the end of the world.
Self-study activity:
Watch the three-minute video and answer the questions about it. The activity is suitable for Intermediate students.
1 When does the last Mayan long count calendar end?
2 When was Nibiru supposed to have crashed with the Earth?
3 Why is Nasa monitoring outer and near space?
4 What does 2012 coincide with, according to rumours?
5 What examples are given of Nasa setting rumours straight?
To check your answers you can read the transcript below.
Forget everything the Mayan calendar has told you. The world is not ending on December 21st. Here’s what you need to know.
The Mayan myth begins with the fact that the Mayans were very good calendar keepers, and they created what we call long-count calendars. This extended not just months or years in advance but centuries. As it happens the last long count calendar we have from them ends on December 21st 2012. Well, that’s fine, every calendar ends at some point, and the good thing is they start over again at zero the next year.
The explanation on the internet and elsewhere was that this must have some prophetic significance. Why would the Mayans, a brilliant and scientific culture stopped counting when they did. For the nonsense to work, the Mayan rumour mongers had to borrow something from the Sumerians. What they got was a theorized planet called Nibiru that was supposed to collide with Earth in 2003. You may have noticed that that didn’t happen, so the folks worried about the Mayans simply grabbed Nibiru, moved it forward to 2012 and combined it with the Mayan rumours. A sort of apocalyptic tuffor.
As with all hoaxes and nonsense, there are particles of truth in the Mayan rumours. One of the things that is supposed to happen on December 21st is the earth is supposed to be flipped upside down. Well not quite. There is some possibility of magnetic polarities switching on our planet or other planets every several tens of thousands of years, the idea of a planet or other bodies approaching Earth and colliding with it is a very real risk. Nasa has some very serious minds working on monitoring deep space and near space for approaching asteroids and certainly planetoids like Nibiru and we would see them coming decades in advance and we’ll be able to track them. Nasa has found none of this.
The rumours also suggest that 2012 coincides with an 11th year peak cycle of solar activities. Those cycles exist, but 2012 is not a peak year. The belief is that solar mass ejections, essentially large solar storms, would be blasted from the sun and toward Earth and either bake the planet or fry all our electrical systems. That, you’ll be happy to learn, is not going to happen either.
This isn’t the first time Nasa has had to set it all straight. Those fake moon landings, they really happened. The face on Mars, just a wind blowing sand dune. And that idea of Mars approaching Earth closely enough in 2010 that it would look as big as the moon didn’t quite happen either.
So enjoy the last month of 2012 and be assured, there’ll be a first month of 2013.
