2012 - Experts, "its just a movie" !!

[TheLegacy]

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment...-t-end-in-2012

"There will be change. All the signs are there, with the economy, the world weather, the Earth," Carrera says.

"It will be a time of rebirth. Newness. Not destruction."

Gyles Iannone, Mayanist and associate professor of anthropology at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., explains the Maya calendar doesn't end on Dec. 21, 2012 – not even close.

"The calendar is much more complex than the calendar system we use today," Iannone says.

Based on 20-day months and 18-month years, the Maya Long Count calendar is only in the 13th phase – the 13th baktun – of a 20-baktun system, Iannone explains.

"In a purely calendric aspect, 2012 doesn't mean a thing," Iannone says.

The cycle doesn't wind up for another 2,700 years.

Which isn't to say Dec. 21, 2012, holds no significance. It marks 13.0.0.0.0 – the beginning of the 14th baktun under the Mayan calendar that starts at the Gregorian equivalent of Aug. 11, 3114 BC, the date Maya people credit as the birth of the world.

"There's nothing to suggest anything about the end of the world. It's really a celebration of a day in the past tied to creation," says Iannone.

"If you Google 2012, the amount of material that comes up is telling and, of course, everybody has their own interpretation," says Iannone, who touches on the subject in the classroom.

Iannone, who also teaches a course on archaeology and pop culture, plans to see the movie – and enjoy it.

"It's a movie, let's not forget that fact," he says.


http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/09110..._space_offbeat

NASA on crusade to debunk 2012 apocalypse myths

Initial theories set the disaster for May 2003, but when nothing happened the date was moved forward to the winter solstice in 2012 to coincide with the end of a cycle of the ancient Mayan calendar.

NASA insisted the Mayan calendar in fact does not end on December 21, 2012, as another period begins immediately afterward. And it said there are no planetary alignments on the horizon for the next few decades.

And even if the planets were to line up as some have forecast, the effect on our planet would be "negligible," NASA said.

Among the other theories NASA has set out to debunk are that geomagnetic storms, a pole reversal or unsteadiness in the Earth's crustal plates might befall the planet.

For example, some myths claim the Earth's rotation and magnetic polarity are related, with a magnetic reversal taking place about every 400,000 years.

"As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn't cause any harm to life on Earth," and a reversal in Earth's rotation is "impossible," NASA reassured, adding that a magnetic reversal is "very unlikely" to occur in the next few millenia.

And while comets and asteroids have always hit the Earth, "big hits are very rare," NASA noted. The last major impact was believed to be 65 million years ago, spurring the end of dinosaurs.

"We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs," the space agency said.