It's Not the End - Don't Quit Your Job or Max Out Your Credit Cards Just Yet

Wired - 12.07.12 by ERIK KLEMETTI

Image: Matthew Bisanz / Wikimedia Commons

So, here we are in December already. December 2012. You know what that means?

MAYA APOCALYPSE!

Got your attention? Good. Because if you think anything even approaching armageddon is going to occur on December 21, 2012, you are 100% wrong.

Now, I’m not going to get into all the gritty details of where this notion that the world “will end” on 12/21/2012 arose. It more or less boils down to some confused ideas about the Maya** calendar and when it supposedly ends (or at least one period begins and another ends). There has been some research on the subject and it is anything but settled what exactly is in the Maya calendar and what, if any, significance 12/21/2012 might have (other than people love dates with pretty number sequences). There is no hard, unquestionable archeological evidence that 12/21/12 has much meaning in the Maya calendar or that even if it did, that it proclaims “we’re all doomed”.


However, if we (wrongly) assume that 12/12/2012 is the end of the world, then how will it supposedly happen? Most of the “theories” I’ve seen involve a lot of nonsense about (1) alignment of planets and the galactic center; (2) the close pass of some dark star or large planet to Earth (e.g., Nibiru); (3) complete random rubbish. So, as to try to quell some of the rumors out there, I thought I’d do a brief Q & A about the Maya Apocalypse because a lot of the ways the world ends involves earthquakes and volcanoes. Here goes:

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