2012: Doomsday

Conspiracy theorists are running riot, as scientists field questions on the end of the world…

You have to wonder what is happening to a culture that starts taking Hollywood seriously. Imagine where we would be if we paid the same attention to Bollywood. The release of the movie 2012, which predicts the end of human civilisation, has led to conspiracy theorists running riot on the web.

As a result, astronomers who run columns in popular science magazines are fielding queries that are normally reserved for agony aunts. Danny Morrison, a Nasa astronomer who answers reader’s questions on a Nasa website, says he normally gets about a dozen questions a week but over the past six months he is fielding 20 to 25 questions on the hysteria, ranging from people who say ‘I don’t want to die’ to those who claim ‘If Nasa denies it then it must be true’. Such fears have been fuelled by internet posts on the planet Nibiru that allegedly has a 3,600-year orbit and is soon about to enter the inner solar system and doom the earth.

The claim goes that Mesopotamians knew of this planet, as did the Mayans, but affirming its existence could lead to such panic that it is being kept under wraps. Even so, it will become visible to the naked eye later this year in the Southern Hemisphere. Fortunately, in all this there is only one credible fact of some interest, but it has nothing to do with doomsday. The Mayans have a calendar that is cyclical, and a cycle of the calendar is to end on 21 December 2012. But relax, the end of a cycle is not the end of time, it is just the beginning of another cycle.

The Mayan calendar:

0.0.0.0.1 – 1 day

0.0.0.1.0 – 20 days

0.0.1.0.0 – 360 days

0.1.0.0.0 – 7,200 days

1.0.0.0.0 – 144,000 days

In this calendar, 13.0.0.0.0 will fall on 21 December 2012.

All this, of course, makes for great publicity for the film. But even so, why miss out? Buy some popcorn and indulge yourself in some mindless Hollywood fare driven by great special effects. Apparently, the end of a cycle in the Mayan tradition is time for celebration.

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Hartosh Singh Bal