2012和世界末日

History has a long and rich tradition of apocalyptic predictions, all of which were wrong, yet some people still think that this time 'round in 2012 is the real deal.
历史上关于世界末日的预言实在是太多了。但是都没有一个应验的但有些人还认为2012这次是来真的。

Why 2012? Because of ancient Mayan calendars, obviously.
为什么是2012呢？显然是因为古代的玛雅历法。

Mayan calendars not only recorded the days and years, but also longer cycles of about 5 millennia.
玛雅历法的周期不仅限于日和年 而且还有一种大约五千年的长周期。

So they could easily make calendars that went 1,000s of years into the future.
所以他们可以很容易就可以做出未来几千年以后的历法。

But, of course, 1,000s of years in the future from 1,000s of years ago brings us to current times when the Mayan calendars stop in 2012.
但当然 几千年前的玛雅历法停在了几千年后的2012年 也就是现在了。

Modern new-agey people decided that the wise Mayans stopped making calendars because they knew when the world would end.And because new agers are happy, though scientifically illiterate, people their vision of 2012 was a great spiritual awakening or world reboot or other hippy-consciousness-expanding nonsense that the Mayans, who spent time pulling strings of thorns through people's tongues, probably didn't have in mind.
现代新纪元信徒断定睿智的玛雅人停止历法的原因是因为他们知道这个世界会在什么时候灭亡，又因为这群新纪元信徒都是一群乐观的科技盲，他们对2012的展望是一场浩大的精神觉醒或者是世界重建或是其他嬉皮意识蔓延的屁话，只会花时间暗中在舌头上穿刺的玛雅人可能不会想到这些。

To a normal person the thought that: calendar finishes therefore end of the world is an odd conclusion to draw. After all, the amount of time in the Universe is infinite and the amount of stone is limited. So, at some point the Mayans had to stop carving calendars.
对一个正常人来说 玛雅历法停止导致世界末日来临的想法是难以理解的。毕竟宇宙的时间是无限的 而用来雕刻的石头却是有限的。所以到了某个时间 玛雅人就找不到石头刻历法玩儿了。

But never mind. What should have stayed a fringe belief turned into mass hysteria with the 2012 disaster movie that swept the academy awards and the numerous Emmy-nominated apocalypse documentaries on...the History Channel.
但不管这些。本应是一个非主流的想法却变成了一个全民的狂热
伴随于此的还有横扫奥斯卡奖的灾难片《2012》和无数获得艾美奖提名的……历史频道世界末日纪录片。

What happened to you guys? Anyway. After this NASA became so inundated with questions that they had to take time away from their busy robot building, frontier pushing, knowledge expanding, civilization inspiring schedule, to write a webpage explaining that no, a human-sacrificing, stone-age society with neither wheels to pull carts nor glass to make telescopes,didn't know more about science at the dawn of history than real scientists do today.
亲们到底肿么啦？无论怎样 在这之后美国宇航局收到铺天盖地的问题，以至于他们要把原来用作机器制作 开拓边界、拓展知识 文明启发进程的时间去编写一个网页来澄清一个用人类作祭品的石器时代社会。既没有用作拉车的轮子 也没有用作制作望远镜的玻璃。他们原始的科技水平跟我们现在科学家相比根本遥不可及。

But the parade of crazy marched on anyway making wilder and wilder predictions for Earth including: Geomagnetic Reversal (a process that unfolds on a geologic timescale, not a single day). A collision with mysterious Planet X (That no astronomers have found). A local star going supernova (Despite there being no such candidates). An Alien Invasion (Which is ludicrous on the face of it… or is it?) And a galactic synchronization beam. (Whatever the hell that is)
但有这群疯子继续脑补各种末日预言 其中包括:地磁反转（一个以地质年代计算的发展过程 不是一蹴而就的); 跟一个神秘的未知星球的相撞（它至今仍未被天文学家发现）;有一个恒星会变成超新星（即使没有一个符合要求）;外星人入侵（表面上看来很荒谬 真的会发生吗）;并且有一个银河同步光束（管他喵的是什么呢）

A sane person, at this point, would wonder how the Mayans were able to predict astrophysical anomalies thousands of years in advance and millions of miles away yet didn't foresee the Spanish coming across the Atlantic. And that's because the Mayans never predicted apocalypse. The only people to claim the Mayans knew about the end of the world were distinctly not Mayans.
一个心智健全的人 此时此刻会纳闷,怎么玛雅人能在几千年就预测到万里之外的天体物理学反常,却没有预知到西班牙人从大西洋对面远道而来呢?那是因为玛雅人从来都没有预言过世界末日,那些声称玛雅人能预测世界末日的人分明不是玛雅人他们自己.