Mayan Apocalypse

13th/14th B'ak'tun, 13.0.0.0.0

One of the things that comes up in class when I am working with children is the numerical patterns around dates such as Palindromes or those have some significant attachment. Yesterday's date was such a talking point since it was the winter solstice for those living in the northern hemisphere. However, this event was overshadowed by Mayan doom theories of the impending expiration of the Long Calendar, and with it the end of life, time and the Earth.

Hype

I have mentioned hype before and how I often feel that being swept up in popular hype goes against rational balanced thinking. This is just one of those stories and the apocalypse theories have been stirred in part by those who have taken the Long Calendar as some kind of prophesy. Even the ancient Mayans astronomers and mathematicians using their own Base 18/20 counting system did not make that claim.

One day, scientifically and/or theologically speaking the Earth will end, so this is a subject that isn't about to go away and that I may come back to explore at some further point InshAllah. As it is ... here's a video by NASA with their view on yesterday's doomsday scenario and how Al Hamdulilah, the Earth is still here one day later. 

Thirty-Nine and Rising

In celebration of the 39th UAE National Day, I share short film that was featured as part of this year's  Abu Dhabi Film Festival giving us a window into life in the UAE. 

 

Interesting Fact: Thirty-Nine is the sum of five consecutive prime numbers (3 + 5 + 7 + 11 + 13). How's that for a bit of trivia?

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two - is gone.

Edward Fitzgerald (1859)

Omar Khayyám (1048-1131, Neyshapur, Khorassan) was a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher and poet. He spent his early childhood in Balkh, Smarkand and then Bukhara and later taught  when he returned to Neyshapur. A selection of his rubaiyas (4 line poems known as quantrains) are collected in Edward Fitzgerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám are in fact transmogrifications of the Farsi rather than translations. 

A closer translation of the rubaiya shared above is shown here:

Take all the worldly goods, but in lieu
Let the beauty of nature renew
And at night on the grass like dew
And in the morn take me away from view

ایدل همه اسباب جهان خواسته گیر

باغ طربت به سبزه آراسته گیر

و آنگاه برآن سبزه شبی چون شبنم

بنشسته و بامداد برخاسته گیر 

Omar Khayyám

aidal hama asbab jehan khoasta geer 

baagh tarbat ba sabza aarasta geer

wa aanga baraan sabza shab-e chon shabnam

banishta wa bamdad barkhasta geer

Human Connectivity 1

An interesting thought that is touched upon in Bill Bryon's book is that of the human chain of connectivity. In exploring genetics and inheritance through Mathematics he shows that, according to a pyramid model, it becomes something of an impossibility. My interest in this means that I look upon this through a different lens - I'm more interested in what it eventually says about US as people and how, ultimately we are all connected - whatever our racial and ethnic background.

Consider the Mathematics that Bryon explores: we have 2 parents and 4 grandparents and 8 great-grandparents. 16 people were our grandparents' grandparents and this increases the further we go back. Eight generations back, we we owe our biological existence to 256 people and so on.

SELF
2 PARENTS
4 GRANDPARENTS
8 GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
16 GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
32 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
64 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
128 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
256 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENT
512 GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDPARENTS
(keep on doubling the figure to go back another generation)

Twenty generations back (about 450 years) we are related to 1,048,576 great ancestors. Five generations before, our existence depends on 33,554,432 people - another five generations before (30 generations back) and we are now counting in figures over a billion. Continue this trend and go back to the time of the Romans and the time-line by which the Gregorian Calendar is fixed (2000 years), then we have a total number of one million trillion people in our immediate ancestry.

According to those who study paleodemographics however, there is something wrong here ... because that last figure is more than the said number of people who have ever lived ...

... allow me to continue in the next instalment InshAllah ...