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This implies that the Mayan must have been recording the positions of the planets with great accuracy over a rather long period of time, probably spanning sever
by fjfaase 3y ago
This implies that the Mayan must have been recording the positions of the planets with great accuracy over a rather long period of time, probably spanning several generations.
- dmbche 3y agoIt seems incredibly clever - and I realise that I assumed they weren't aware of most planets since they're hard to see today, but I'm sure they were very noteworthy event in the pristine sky they were looking at.
- readthenotes1 3y agoThose planets are much easier to see without light pollution. All but Neptune* can be seen by the naked eye. (Shamelessly abusing the classification of Pluto as a dwarf planet here to exclude it from the conversation). Uranus: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/07/starwatch-opposition-is-a-chance-to-see-uranus-with-the-naked-eye https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/07/starwatch-op...
- dmbche 3y agoYou remind me that I wanted to book an airBnB in one of the parks near me, they have an observatory and as such the sky is legally required to be untainted - I haven't seen the milky way in almost 10 years, I can't imagine seeing the stars every night.
- sammalloy 3y agoBefore the light pollution got really bad where I live due to development, provided it wasn’t cloudy, I could see the Milky Way every night for about 15 years. Now, it’s gone due to lax rules and regulations due to commercial security light fixtures which throw light in all direction at night to deter thieves. It’s pretty upsetting, but even worse, most people I talk to don’t even notice it’s gone. That’s almost more disturbing that the light pollution. We’ve lost something that most people aren’t aware they lost in the first place.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- eru 3y agoWell, I've never seen the milky way in the sky with my own eyes.
- dmbche 3y agoI highly recommend looking for a protected night sky zone near you and going to see it at least once - it really is nothing that pictures can translate! https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/finder/ https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/finder/
- aledalgrande 3y agoDamn, nothing in Vancouver eh
- dmbche 3y agoYou can look around or call local park services, I'm seeing that Mont-Megantic, an observatory with federally peotected sky, isn't on their map. I'll look for a canadian ressource (for myself too!) Edit: I'm wrong, Mont-Megantic is the first International Dark Sky Reserve - they worked to get it protected federally because they research telescope design. Dang - I think they are quite rare. Maybe you can send an email to your local university's Astronomy department? I'm sure they'll be able to direct you to a good spot!
- aledalgrande 3y agohttps://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html https://darksitefinder.com/maps/world.html I just found this, shows light pollution. Crazy how the East is much worse. Also Alberta?!?
- 3y ago
- blacksqr 3y agoImagine that before the industrial revolution, on clear moonless nights the Milky Way would cast a shadow.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoUranus is not visible to the eye in any meaningful sense.
- eru 3y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/07/starwatch-opposition-is-a-chance-to-see-uranus-with-the-naked-eye https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/07/starwatch-op... has some background. I would mostly agree with you.
- thaumasiotes 3y agoThat link was already in the comment I responded to. And it doesn't even say that you should expect to be able to see it.
- pgreenwood 3y agoI wish you luck seeing Uranus with the naked eye. It might have appeared on some ancient charts misclassified as a star, perhaps. But we credit Herschel with the identifcation as a planet in 1781, over 150 years after the invention of the telescope. Source: Years of observations from bortle 1 skies when I knew exactly where to look.
- readthenotes1 3y agoNot in today's skies, not with my eyes. But in the time before cell phones, internet, tv, radio, electric lights, or bound books, with nothing better to do at night but look at the sky and listen to your neighbor pleasuring their spouse ... I think the odds improve greatly.
- fatneckbeard 3y agoit's like if we had the same TV show every night for our whole life, i think we would start to notice some patterns
- throwaway290 3y agoTV show that rained fireballs at your ancestors at random intervals...
- devsda 3y agoIt's funny and terrifying at the same time imagining our tv throwing fireballs randomly while watching it. Thanks for the chuckle.
- throwaway290 3y agoThe kind of show that really makes you pay attention!
- aeturnum 3y agoYes, absolutely. The Maya are generally thought to have been 'around'[1] for ~1450 years. [1] Of course, Mayan people still exist (and continue to carry their culture), but this is about the civilization.
- chema 3y agoThe Long Count, part of the calendar, was in use until quite recently and may still be used in parts of Guatemala, so there is some continuity.
- andrewshadura 3y agoThey’re properly called Maya people. The word Mayan only refers to the ancient civilisation.
- aeturnum 3y agoAh, my bad - thank you for the correction!
- jcranmer 3y agoThe Mayan calendrical system is the most complex to have ever been used. To write a full date in a Classical Mayan site, you need to include: * The current date in the 365-day solar calendar (18 months of 20 days + 5 extracalendrical days) * The current date in the 260-day ritual calendar (13 "months" of 20 days, the months don't work like regular months we're used to) * The "long count" date, i.e., the number of days elapsed from August 11, 3114 BC in proleptic Gregorian * A 9 day cycle (roughly equivalent to our weekday) * The date of the current lunar month * The length of the current lunar month (29 or 30 days) * A counter to keep track of where the lunar month is in terms of 29 or 30 day months * The 819-day cycle, discussed in this article. That is a sheer amount of information to be repeated (dates were the first aspect of Maya script to be deciphered, simply because a very large fraction of the text on stelae at Mayan are just these dates), and probably one of the reasons for this complexity is a way of showing off astronomical prowess (there are actually a few different correlations to lunar months in use at the same time, depending on which major polity's tables you wanted to follow). Of particular note is that the main long-distance counting is the Long Count, which is a literal count of days elapsed since creation. There's no evidence of regnal dating system, which is very unusual compared to Eurasian calendars where maintaining dates across different kings is more of an occasional pastime rather than common dating format. This counting of days makes it extremely easy to work out long-distance periodic relationships. Given that we already have hundreds of years of date keeping being recorded before the 819-day cycle appears (IIRC, it's a late innovation in Classic Maya), it's virtually certain that reliable records spanning centuries could have been collected by the Classic Maya.
- fouc 3y agoI really wonder what kind of organizational structure the Mayan astrologers had in order to develop and propagate this knowledge in their society over generations. Getting vibes of Neal Stephenson's Anathem.
- hammyhavoc 3y agoHoly shit. Thank you for bringing this up, I'd wondered for ~15 years what my uncle was reading at his desk one time when I visited, but only ever remembered the cover.
- chema 3y agoAbsolutely. Years ago I made what is essentially a Unix time / Maya Long Count converter and I was very pleased with how similar they were in concept (i.e. counting seconds or days from a particular epoch) with the only major difference being the base 10 vs base 20. https://github.com/chema/long-count https://github.com/chema/long-count
- Someone 3y ago> I was very pleased with how similar they were in concept (i.e. counting seconds or days from a particular epoch) I don’t think there are many alternatives. Counting backwards would either mean diving into negative numbers or postponing that by starting at an arbitrary high number. “In the x-th year of ruler Y” plus a knowledge of the succession of rulers is awkward for recording over centuries. I expect that has been used almost everywhere before history (in the meaning of ‘after prehistory’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistory) began, but as far as I know, where written records exist, countries that used it such as Japan also had another system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calendar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calendar)
- chema 3y agoMost calendars still use internal cycles. These two calendars are more comparable to the astronomical Julian Day.
- fanf2 3y agoThe reason the Julian day number is important is because Joseph Justus Scaliger went to enormous effort to create a consistent chronology of ancient and mediaeval history from records that mostly used regnal years. Sometimes they might use other calendars, or refer to the 19 year metonic cycle (determining the date of easter) or the day of the week (a 28 year cycle) or the year in the indiction cycle (a 15 year tax period in the eastern roman / byzantine empire). His chronology covered several non-european cultures as well as graeco-roman history. It is neat that astronomers are using a modernized version of his dating system, so ancient records can be more easily matched to modern observations.
- retrac 3y agoThey were. The Mayans were perhaps the most consistent and precise, of all people doing astronomy, at least before telescopes. Unlike with almost all other ancient calendars, the alignment of the Mayan calendar to our own is known quite exactly. Scholars have compiled lists with all the eclipses, astronomical records, etc. known from the Mesoamerican writings. There's only one correlation that makes sense, and it aligns with basically everything. Lunar phase, planetary locations, recent eclipses, even the records carved in wood which can be radiocarbon dated (carved on wood that died within the years expected for what's written on it). We can, of course, never really be certain, but it's likely correct that Pakal the Great died on 9.12.11.5.18 -- in August 683, probably on the 29th. With Ancient Egypt, the window of uncertainty with dates in the Middle Kingdom, is about 20 years, and closer to 100 with the Old Kingdom. Nor do we know precisely when Nineveh fell, and that event is recorded in the records of multiple cultures.
- credit_guy 3y ago> at least before telescopes. That distinction must go to Tycho Brahe, who made all his astronomical observations without any telescope (Galileo started using a telescope in 1609, while Brahe died in 1601).