Talk:Maya calendar/Archives/2005/December

Calculating the Tzolkin date portion
The text of this section of the article now reads:

An anonymous person added this text:

The change, as it was formatted by that anonymous person, is inappropriate for the article space. However, the person has a point. What if the remainder had been zero? For example, what if the day were 1383131, and the same calculation were performed? It strikes me that a change of one sort or another is needed here.&mdash;GraemeMcRaetalk 04:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)


 * The maths is by using the modulo 13 of a number. Basically you are subtracting as many 13's as possible from the original number. Whatever is left is what you use to advance the count from the base date. If the remainder was 0, you don't advance that portion of the date. Dylanwhs 09:26, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Accurate calendars
It's been reported the Maya caledar was the most accurate until the Gregorian. Trekphiler 22:51, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

True, that is a statement frequently encountered, and perhaps equally often it is claimed that the Maya calendar was/is much more accurate than our present Western one. However, both of these statements are untrue, or at least need to be highly qualified. As shown in this article, the portion of the Maya calendar which approximated the tropical year took account of 365 full days, and the calendar itself had no mechanism or adjustment such as 'leap years' which would keep it in synch with the "true" year. However, even though the Maya did not see fit to update their calendar with the appropriate compensatory mechanisms, it is evident that they were well enough aware of its gradual precession for they would from time to time realign certain ceremonies which were supposed to correspond with astronomical and seasonal events- but did not adjust the calendar itself. I think that when people (rather too loosely) speak of the Maya calendars' "remarkable accuracy", what they are really referring to is their prowess in observational and mathematical calculations, with which they could indeed pinpoint certain astronomical events with considerable accuracy. For eg, by extending the number of observation cycles of the moon (as is done in the Dresden Codex's eclipse tables) to 405 lunar months, this corresponded to a mean synodic month of 29.53086, whereas the modern mean value is 29.53059. This is a little more accurate than the corresponding Ptolemaic calculation, for example. However, it should be noted that these calculations were done more so to "fit in" with numbers and cycles they found significant, rather than for accuracy's sake alone, and that the calendars themselves were not adjusted. Perhaps it could be said that they possessed highly accurate almanacs, rather than calendars.--cjllw | TALK  00:40, 9 December 2005 (UTC)