2012 – No time to end the world

According to the rules of the Maya calendar system, which relied on multiple cycles of time, a primary interval, Baktun 13, ends on the winter solstice of 2012. Although pseudoscientific claims have linked this calendrical curiosity to a supposed Maya prophecy of the end of time, there is no documented Maya belief in the world's end in 2012 nor even that they attributed any unusual significance to the event. Recent claims, however, promote the date's galactic alignment and link it with the detailed structure of our Galaxy, information known only through modern astronomy. This light-hearted presentation will poke gentle fun at how the 2012 beliefs about global transformation, Solar System alignment, rogue planets, catastrophic pole shifts, and calamitous sunspots have been fabricated and marketed and will tell us what the Universe is really doing on the winter solstice in 2012.

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About Ed Krupp

Dr Ed Krupp is Director of Griffith Observatory, a public observatory and planetarium in Los Angeles, a role he has filled since 1974. He earned his PhD in the Department of Astronomy at UCLA, where he studied the properties of rich clusters of galaxies under the late Dr George Abell. He is now recognized internationally as an expert on ancient, prehistoric, and traditional astronomy, and has visited over 1,900 sites around the world of astronomical and archaeological interest.