September 6, 3114BC It’s a Mayan Thing

One of the sillier bits of pop culture nonsense served up to us in the recent past, may be the world coming to an end on 12/21/12, according to the Mayan calendar. The calendar itself isn’t silly, it’s actually a sophisticated mathematical construct but the end of the world part, certainly was.

The Mayans were skilled mathematicians and it shows in their calendar, the first to recognize the concept of zero, and working extensively in a base 20 number system.

The Mayans used three separate calendars, each period represented by its own glyph. The Long Count was mainly used for historical purposes. The Maya/Mesoamerican long count, begun this day in 3114BC (corresponding to the Julian Calendar).was able to specify any date within a 2,880,000 day cycle.

The Haab was a civil calendar consisting of 18 months of 20 days, and one 5-day Uayeb, a nameless period rounding out the 365-day…