The end of the world.
Dec. 21 holds the most current date prophesized as the day the world will end.
“The world ends on a fairly regular basis,” said Esther Clinton, an instructor in the popular culture department.
Clinton said the knowledge that seasons end and time passes leaves people thinking the Earth must come to an end as well.
“The way that we think about time, everything that has a start has an end — not even diamonds last forever,” she said. “Look at history: the Roman empire fell, individual lives end and it makes people think that the world must end as well. But, the dinosaurs all died off and that wasn’t even the end of the world.”
Senior Dan Grime said the end of the world has come to be like the boy who cried wolf.
“I think people must be making money off of it somehow, that’s the only reason I can think it keeps happening,” Grime said. “I personally think it sounds a little out there.”
The current date set for the world to end is based on the misinterpretation of the Mayan calendar.
Clinton said the Mayan calendar takes into account the relationship between the moon and the sun cycles, so the length consists of a number of years rather than months. When the calender ends, like it will on Dec. 21, it resets, just like when December ends, January begins.
Katie Oberhuber, an exchange student from Austria, said she thinks the buzz around the world ending on Dec. 21 became popular after the movie “2012” released.
“I think it was a big deal then, but now it’s not even a discussion really,” Oberhuber said.
Recently NASA has announced the world will not end on Dec. 21, Clinton said. This announcement came after the organization received several phone calls from individuals threatening suicide, she said.
The concern started from rumors that a planet has the potential to collide with the Earth on the prophesized doomsday.
“Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax,” according to a post on nasa.gov. “There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist.”
Clinton said Dec. 21 has created the most intense concern for the end of the world in the past decade, but does not compare to the transition from 1999 to 2000 and 2000 to 2001.
Grime agreed.
“I remember hearing more about people stockpiling water and food for Y2K, than I’ve heard for this one,” he said.
Many end-of-the-world cases connect with big calendar changes, Clinton said. The Mayan calendar is based on actual changes in Earth’s rotation. Dec. 21 will be the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice.
“The thing we have to remember is calendars are artificial systems that we created for things like when to plant crops,” Clinton said.
Oberhuber said that she has seen one party for the world after Dec. 21.
Clinton said that some people celebrate the winter solstice, which will happen on Dec. 21, already, so some parties will be in connection with that as well.
“It’s a funny thing, but Americans don’t have enough parties,” Clinton said. “In Europe, they have about three times as many holidays and vacation time as Americans. I don’t think parties for the end of the world will catch on, but maybe it should.”
Clinton said she understands worrying about the end of the world on Dec. 21, but there really is no need.
“I don’t believe the world will end partially because I’ve been through a lot of end of the worlds and partially my interest in the Mayan arithmetic tells me it is just a misunderstanding of the calendar,” she said. “That’s not just something to make people feel better — it’s true.”
