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Re: Ariadne's thread
Posted:
Dec 2, 2011 2:25 AM
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Appendix regarding the calendar of the Maya
The 260-day count would have been the 'spine' of the
calendar, a solid numerical structure into which the
astronomical cycles would have been 'hung', so to say.
Longtime observations combined with number sequences
would have allowed to establish these 'equations':
42 tropical years are 59 Tzolkin
405 lunations are 46 Tzolkin
240 synodic Venus orbits are 539 Tzolkin
Mathematically one can then deduce the following
correspondences:
1932 tropical years are 23895 lunations
3773 tropical years are 2360 synodic Venus orbits
736 Venus years are 14553 lunations
Reduced forms:
19 years -- 235 lunations
(19 x 23895 = 454005, 235 x 1932 = 454020)
8 years -- 5 Venus years
(8 x 2360 = 18880, 5 x 3773 = 18865)
259 years -- 162 Venus years
(259 x 2360 = 611240, 162 x 3773 = 611226)
1247 years -- 780 Venus years
(1247 x 2360 = 2942920, 780 x 3773 = 2942940)
22 Venus years -- 435 lunations
(22 x 14553 = 320166, 736 x 435 = 320160)
Most writings of the Maya went up in flames. We have
to reconstruct their methods and fill the gaps from
the numbers themselves, and from the astronomical
cycles. In other words: we need an experimental approach
also in the history of mathematics. We can't just project
our modern methods backward in time. We have to allow
the ancient ones to have done things their way, and try
to reconstruct their methods by way of experiment.
"The past is another country: they do things differently
there." J.T. Harvey, The Go-Between
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