how do you explain this

digme

The Mayans measured the time for the earth to orbit the sun and had it timed to within 8 seconds.

namloc1980

Eh....a year is how long it takes to orbit the Sun. Mayans were clever guys. Like many civilizations they understood Solstice (see Newgrange passage tomb for example) and Equinox. The time from one Winter Solstice to the next is a year. What's the mystery here?

nyarlothothep

I think he meant that the Mayans had it timed so accurately that they were able to calculate the earths orbit around the sun to within an 8 second margin of error, hence they showed it to be 365 days, 23 hours, 59 mins, 52 seconds or something like that, which would compete favourably for an ancient civilization against modern measurements using the best equipment.

CiaranMT

Just for other readers, could ya put up a source on this figures?

namloc1980

nyarlothothep wrote: »

I think he meant that the Mayans had it timed so accurately that they were able to calculate the earths orbit around the sun to within an 8 second margin of error, hence they showed it to be 365 days, 23 hours, 59 mins, 52 seconds or something like that, which would compete favourably for an ancient civilization against modern measurements using the best equipment.

I still don't get the big mystery. The Mayans were dedicated astronomers and religiously observed the night sky. The background stars appear to move from our vantage point on Earth as we orbit the Sun. With some dedicated observation, careful measurements and accurate records it is fairly straight forward to calculate accurately how long it takes for the stars to appear in the same place again at a particular point in time. Throw in observation of the Sun at Solstice and you can get even more accuracy.

Mahatma coat

I'd be more interested in how they got accurate measurements for Minutes and Seconds without mechanical clocks or the like

nyarlothothep

namloc1980 wrote: »

I still don't get the big mystery. The Mayans were dedicated astronomers and religiously observed the night sky. The background stars appear to move from our vantage point on Earth as we orbit the Sun. With some dedicated observation, careful measurements and accurate records it is fairly straight forward to calculate accurately how long it takes for the stars to appear in the same place again at a particular point in time. Throw in observation of the Sun at Solstice and you can get even more accuracy.

No, it was aliens, who pose as deities across the whole spectrum of human religions.

nosedive

Eh, first question should be - how do you know they had it timed to within 8 seconds?!
how did they know what seconds were or how was that correlation made??

PseudoFamous

digme wrote: »

The Mayans measured the time for the earth to orbit the sun and had it timed to within 8 seconds.

That doesn't make sense. They had a slippage of one day every four years in contrast to our Gregorian calendar, which has slippage of one day every 3300 years. They weren't that accurate.

nyarlothothep

nosedive wrote: »

Eh, first question should be - how do you know they had it timed to within 8 seconds?!
how did they know what seconds were or how was that correlation made??

Math is universal.

Mahatma coat

ah here now, Math is far from universal

MXCII
+
CVII
=????

answers on a Postcard please to

HowDidTheRomansDoComplexEngineeringWithSuchACrappyNumberSystem.com

ed2hands

PseudoFamous wrote: »

That doesn't make sense. They had a slippage of one day every four years in contrast to our Gregorian calendar, which has slippage of one day every 3300 years. They weren't that accurate.

Where did you find that info? Maybe you got it from one of those 2012 debunking sites that also wrongly pour scorn on Mayan techniques .

I gather the following is more accurate:

The accepted definition of a solar tropical year is approximately 365.2422 days.

The Gregorian Calendar year has an average length of approximately 365.2425 days.

The Mayan Calendar year comparison has an average length of approximately 365.2420 days.

The variation for the Gregorian calendar is .0003. The variation for the Mayan Calendar is .0002.

http://recomparison.com/comparisons/100595/mayan-calendar-vs-gregorian-calendar/

Mahatma coat

yeah, but whilst we know something about Mayan calendars with regard the ammount of Days they had in a year, how many hours did they have in a day?? how many minutes to the hour, how close to our standard second was their standard second??

is the second universaly calculated by other ancient civilisations, if they dids it based on pendelums, which would be logical then what regional variances are there between their measurements and the Chinese

Cavehill Red

ed2hands wrote: »

Where did you find that info? Maybe you got it from one of those 2012 debunking sites that also wrongly pour scorn on Mayan techniques .

I gather the following is more accurate:

The accepted definition of a solar tropical year is approximately 365.2422 days.

The Gregorian Calendar year has an average length of approximately 365.2425 days.

The Mayan Calendar year comparison has an average length of approximately 365.2420 days.

The variation for the Gregorian calendar is .0003. The variation for the Mayan Calendar is .0002.

http://www.mayacalendar.org/mayan-calendar-accuracy.htm

Your source isn't exactly disinterested either.
Now, I may be misunderstanding, but as far as I can see the Mayan year was 365 days flat - ie 18 months of 20 days plus an extra 5. That makes it way less accurate than the Gregorian calendar.

PseudoFamous

ed2hands wrote: »

Where did you find that info? Maybe you got it from one of those 2012 debunking sites that also wrongly pour scorn on Mayan techniques .

I gather the following is more accurate:

The accepted definition of a solar tropical year is approximately 365.2422 days.

The Gregorian Calendar year has an average length of approximately 365.2425 days.

The Mayan Calendar year comparison has an average length of approximately 365.2420 days.

The variation for the Gregorian calendar is .0003. The variation for the Mayan Calendar is .0002.

http://recomparison.com/comparisons/100595/mayan-calendar-vs-gregorian-calendar/

I was under the impression that the Mayan calendar was cut at 365.000, allowing a slip of just under .25 of a day a year. As such, every 4 years they have a slip of a day. Our calendar allows for the slip using a leap year, whereas the mayan calendar never accounts for the lost time. 3300 years was from memory, we discussed it in "religion" class.

I could easily be wrong, and will humbly accept any solid and neutral evidence which disproves me.

ed2hands

PseudoFamous wrote: »

I was under the impression that the Mayan calendar was cut at 365.000, allowing a slip of just under .25 of a day a year. As such, every 4 years they have a slip of a day. Our calendar allows for the slip using a leap year, whereas the mayan calendar never accounts for the lost time. 3300 years was from memory, we discussed it in "religion" class.

I could easily be wrong, and will humbly accept any solid and neutral evidence which disproves me.

http://www.nichbelize.org/ia-archaeology/astronomy-calendrics-and-mathematics.html

It seems they were out by 17.28 seconds per year, so digme was slightly off;)

namloc1980

Anyway, what is the point of the OP?

nyarlothothep

Mahatma coat wrote: »

ah here now, Math is far from universal

MXCII
+
CVII
=????

answers on a Postcard please to

HowDidTheRomansDoComplexEngineeringWithSuchACrappyNumberSystem.com

well yeah but V equals 5 just as 5=5, so if you look at the equations and know what the symbols represent, which isn't hard if you have a Mayan etymologist, you could reasonably work out what their calculations meant.

As for what the thread is about, I don't know other than that this is more evidence for their contact with aliens.

namloc1980

nyarlothothep wrote: »

well yeah but V equals 5 just as 5=5, so if you look at the equations and know what the symbols represent, which isn't hard if you have a Mayan etymologist, you could reasonably work out what their calculations meant.

As for what the thread is about, I don't know other than that this is more evidence for their contact with aliens.

How the hell is it evidence of alien contact?

nyarlothothep

namloc1980 wrote: »

How the hell is it evidence of alien contact?

They wouldn't have been able to do it themselves, just like the Egyptians wouldn't have been able to build the pyramids by themselves. They got outside help from advanced beings.

namloc1980

nyarlothothep wrote: »

They wouldn't have been able to do it themselves, just like the Egyptians wouldn't have been able to build the pyramids by themselves. They got outside help from advanced beings.

What a load of crap. Are you saying that humans are too stupid to do math and engineering on our own?

nyarlothothep

namloc1980 wrote: »

What a load of crap. Are you saying that humans are too stupid to do math and engineering on our own?

yep pretty much. If you take a look at the construction of the pyramids you'll see that there was no way they could have moved those stone blocks using Ancient technology. Ditto for the accuracy of Mayan measurements.

namloc1980

nyarlothothep wrote: »

yep pretty much. If you take a look at the construction of the pyramids you'll see that there was no way they could have moved those stone blocks using Ancient technology. Ditto for the accuracy of Mayan measurements.

More rubbish. How do you think Newton, Boole etc. made their mathematical discoveries or how did the Romans build their huge vaulted buildings? Little green men helped them out I suppose? :rolleyes:

Cavehill Red

ed2hands wrote: »

http://www.nichbelize.org/ia-archaeology/astronomy-calendrics-and-mathematics.html

It seems they were out by 17.28 seconds per year, so digme was slightly off;)

Firstly, all these links seem to be to Mayan nutjob sites rather than any disinterested source.
Secondly, they all agree that the Mayan year was 365 days long.
Where are you getting this extra fraction of a day from?

nyarlothothep

namloc1980 wrote: »

More rubbish. How do you think Newton, Boole etc. made their mathematical discoveries or how did the Romans build their huge vaulted buildings? Little green men helped them out I suppose? :rolleyes:

No, calculus was quite within the realm of human achievement. However building pyramids from huge slabs of granite which can barely be lifted with modern equipment would infer that there was no way the Egpytians could have done it themselves. Hence aliens. This also applies to the astounding accuracy of Mayan measurements, also their religion contains references to aliens.

charlemont

nyarlothothep wrote: »

They wouldn't have been able to do it themselves, just like the Egyptians wouldn't have been able to build the pyramids by themselves. They got outside help from advanced beings.

The evidence points to there being a former great human civilisation which may or may not have included aliens and obviously we or nature wrecked it and thus we started again from scratch, Thats my take on it all, I now believe the great flood in the bible is true..

roryok

nyarlothothep wrote: »

yep pretty much. If you take a look at the construction of the pyramids you'll see that there was no way they could have moved those stone blocks using Ancient technology. Ditto for the accuracy of Mayan measurements.

I was in Chichen Itza last week and they explained much of this stuff while we were there. Many of the buildings etc contain markings which align with the sun etc depending on the time of year (solstices and equinoxes etc). While it is true that they measured the length of a year pretty accurately this seems to have been more to do with predicting harvests, sacrifices etc.

No evidence of alien involvement or the like required given how important such things were to them. Similar observations could be made today and were made by several different civilisations around the world.

The Maya have similar pyramids to the egyptians there too, but it appears that these were built on top of older structures.

namloc1980

nyarlothothep wrote: »

No, calculus was quite within the realm of human achievement. However building pyramids from huge slabs of granite which can barely be lifted with modern equipment would infer that there was no way the Egpytians could have done it themselves. Hence aliens. This also applies to the astounding accuracy of Mayan measurements, also their religion contains references to aliens.

So humans can do math but the Mayans, for some reason, couldn't and needed to draft in the little green men to give them a hand?? :rolleyes:

As for the pyramids, you are either deliberately or unknowingly ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the blocks pyramids are made of limestone averaging 2.5 tons each in weight so you might please explain how the Egyptians were too stupid to move these blocks? There are relatively few granite blocks in the pyramids and fewer still of the super large blocks. Also the Egyptians had vast human resources. Sometimes brute human power can do amazing things. The pyramids are amazing human achievements, they didn't need little green men to build them.

ed2hands

Cavehill Red wrote: »

Firstly, all these links seem to be to Mayan nutjob sites rather than any disinterested source.
Secondly, they all agree that the Mayan year was 365 days long.
Where are you getting this extra fraction of a day from?

So the Belize Institute of Archaeology i linked to is a "Mayan nutjob site" is it?:rolleyes:

I'm not getting the extra fraction of a day from anywhere; the Mayans and Olmecs got it by the ingeniuos methods they used.
Before you go assuming it's bollox, why don't you go and read about from the hundreds of books on the subject?

(Need a hand? Type in 365.240 days in to google, then select Books on the left and bobs your uncle what do you know there's reams of non-Mayan nutjob info)

nyarlothothep

namloc1980 wrote: »

So humans can do math but the Mayans, for some reason, couldn't and needed to draft in the little green men to give them a hand?? :rolleyes:

As for the pyramids, you are either deliberately or unknowingly ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the blocks pyramids are made of limestone averaging 2.5 tons each in weight so you might please explain how the Egyptians were too stupid to move these blocks? There are relatively few granite blocks in the pyramids and fewer still of the super large blocks. Also the Egyptians had vast human resources. Sometimes brute human power can do amazing things. The pyramids are amazing human achievements, they didn't need little green men to build them.

Formulas can be derived or discovered based on existing bodies of work, making extremely precise measurements of physical bodies requires advanced technology which the mayans didn't have access to if we omit aliens. Furthermore if you look at aerial shots they carved huge landing strips from the earth in addition to representations of Visitors. They also had pictures of aircraft which look similar to our own. So its clear that they were visited by aliens who granted them with the ability to prophesize about future events, this wasn't just limited to the Mayans, they also contacted Indian tribes.

Oh yeah, limestone, thats what I meant. In anycase if the best modern technology barely manages to move these granite blocks, then human slaves in an arid and inhospitable desert would have no chance. Its clear that aliens were involved. Apparently the pyramids are actually constitutive of a massive star chart.

namloc1980

nyarlothothep wrote: »

Formulas can be derived or discovered based on existing bodies of work, making extremely precise measurements of physical bodies requires advanced technology which the mayans didn't have access to if we omit aliens. Furthermore if you look at aerial shots they carved huge landing strips from the earth in addition to representations of Visitors. They also had pictures of aircraft which look similar to our own. So its clear that they were visited by aliens who granted them with the ability to prophesize about future events, this wasn't just limited to the Mayans, they also contacted Indian tribes.

Oh yeah, limestone, thats what I meant. In anycase if the best modern technology barely manages to move these granite blocks, then human slaves in an arid and inhospitable desert would have no chance. Its clear that aliens were involved. Apparently the pyramids are actually constitutive of a massive star chart.

Making precise measurements of the heavens does not require advanced technology as you suggest. This is total BS. Please explain to me for example how did Jeremiah Horrocks predict a Transit of Venus in 1639 without advanced technology, using only mathematics?

As for the "landing strips" and lines. This was the Nazca in Peru, not the Maya in Central America. You seems to have many of your "facts" mixed up. And the Nazca lines have nothing to do with aliens, unless you have concrete evidence to the contrary of course??

As for being unable to move granite slabs today! The largest stones are in the 50-80 ton bracket. Humans built a rocket in the 1960's that took man to the Moon called the Saturn V. It could lift over 100 tons into orbit. Or did we have to get the little green men to help us there as well??? :rolleyes:

BTW you do know that the Giza pyramids are within a stones throw of one of the largest rivers in the world: the Nile. "Arid and inhospitable" my ass.