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The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

phys.org

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Re: The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

#131

Post by deltarholamda »

eru wrote: post #43
sammalloy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before the light pollution got really bad where I live due to development, provided it wasn’t cloudy, I could see the Milky Way every night for about 15 years. Now, it’s gone due to lax rules and regulations due to commercial security light fixtures which throw light in all direction at night to deter thieves. It’s pretty upsetting, but even worse, most people I talk to don’t even notice it’s gone. That’s almost more…

Well, I've never seen the milky way in the sky with my own eyes.

Unfortunately, you are among many. I read a statistic that 90+% of people have never seen the Milky Way.

I grew up out in the country, and the night sky instilled a love of astronomy from an early age. If all you can see is a handful of stars, it's easy to forget what's above your head.

Re: The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

#132

Post by aaomidi »

dang wrote: post #66
aaomidi wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking through their comment history nothing stood out, and unfortunately the comment they made is now invisible :( Im now very curious what the straw was that broke the camels back.

You can see dead comments by turning 'showdead' on in your profile. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html . If you do that, just please realize that (1) you're signing up to see the worst that the internet brings to HN (because we don't delete any of those posts - the most we do is kill them), and (2) don't forget that you did it! We regularly get emails from users complaining about awful comm…

Oh god. Well I’m glad that’s an option but damn.

Makes sense now why they’re banned.

Re: The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

#133

Post by Izkata »

desultir wrote: post #26
Dalewyn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A year after the supposed year of the end of the world has passed without incident. The goalposts must be kept moving.

it's only been a year since 2012? Man it feels longer, must be all the bad news

Even before 2012 people were saying it was either 2012 or 2021 and we're not sure which. The reasoning was basically that some years are missing from the calendar.

It came back in 2020 with a slightly different number: https://www.republicworld.com/fact-check/viral/fact-check-di...

Re: The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

#134

Post by blackoil »

fooker wrote: post #53
egypturnash wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's basically no surviving Mayan literature, thanks to the hard work of the Catholic church. So good luck finding more evidence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_civilization#Writing_and_...

It's a miracle that India was spared this fate. All thanks to the East India Company being a soulless megacorp devoted to profits instead of religious zeal like the other colonists.

Two more factors, India had contact with most of the world since the beginning, so no new disease wiped it on contact. Also you can not overestimate the population of India.

Re: The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

#135

Post by credit_guy »

retrac wrote: post #127
fjfaase wrote: post #3

This implies that the Mayan must have been recording the positions of the planets with great accuracy over a rather long period of time, probably spanning several generations.

They were. The Mayans were perhaps the most consistent and precise, of all people doing astronomy, at least before telescopes. Unlike with almost all other ancient calendars, the alignment of the Mayan calendar to our own is known quite exactly. Scholars have compiled lists with all the eclipses, astronomical records, etc. known from the Mesoamerican writings. There's only one correlation that makes sense, and it ali…

> at least before telescopes.

That distinction must go to Tycho Brahe, who made all his astronomical observations without any telescope (Galileo started using a telescope in 1609, while Brahe died in 1601).

Re: The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

#136

Post by aeturnum »

andrewshadura wrote: post #114
aeturnum wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely. The Maya are generally thought to have been 'around'[1] for ~1450 years. [1] Of course, Mayan people still exist (and continue to carry their culture), but this is about the civilization.

They’re properly called Maya people. The word Mayan only refers to the ancient civilisation.

Ah, my bad - thank you for the correction!

Re: The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

#137

Post by fooker »

blackoil wrote: post #134
fooker wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a miracle that India was spared this fate. All thanks to the East India Company being a soulless megacorp devoted to profits instead of religious zeal like the other colonists.

Two more factors, India had contact with most of the world since the beginning, so no new disease wiped it on contact. Also you can not overestimate the population of India.

The population density was not higher than the Mayans, Aztecs (and several dozen civilizations in the middle east) who did get wiped out.

You are right about the diseases being endemic in the population.

Re: The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

#138

Post by fooker »

hackernewds wrote: post #105
fooker wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nalanda University. I feel like the role of Nalanda in Indian history has been greatly exaggerated. The education system was very decentralized, and that's really why most things have survived. There is not much evidence of concrete knowledge/resources being lost at Nalanda.

Nalanda U operated for 600 years from 427 CE (!!!) holding over 9m texts [2] The importance of texts from that generation at that scale cannot be overstated [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20220120055253/https://www.patna... [2] https://www.myindiamyglory.com/2017/09/11/nalanda-9-million-...

The 9 million figure is exaggerated by a few order of magnitudes.

Also, think about it in this way: if some of the manuscripts there was the only copy available, were those really impactful?

Re: The Mayan calendar might represent a longer timescale than previously considered

#140

Post by smolder »

trinsic2 wrote: post #63
voz_ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a nonsense definition. Science absolutely must follow the scientific method. What you are talking about is natural philosophy and protosciences - its the difference between alchemy and chemistry - which is all the difference in the world.

There are different scientific methods and different senses that need to be used for abstract topics like Alchemy. Just because most of the worlds population lost the ability to use these other senses to understand the science behind Alchemy does not make it any less important. What you are referring to in your one-size-fits-all "Scientific Method" is called Scientism. A belief, just like religion, that the only meth…

Are you actually on HN arguing that alchemy is some kind of real thing, a skill that we lost? Different senses? Is this a joke?

My understanding of alchemy is that its practitioners tried to transmute matter from one kind to another, e.g. lead to gold, because they didn't know enough about how matter worked to know they'd always fail.

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