Talk:Maya calendar/Archives/2007/May

Range of Long Count Starting Dates

The article was edited to say that the starting date of the Long Count is a range of three days using the GMT correlation. This is absolutely wrong. A correlation constant is an integer which is used to solve the ahau equation, not a range of integers. The Modified Thompson 2 (Goodman Martinez Thompson - GMT) correlation constant is 584,283 days. The other two are different correlations and have their own names. The 584,284 correlation is the Modified Thompson 1 and the 583,285 correlation is the Thompson correlation. If the GMT correlation was really a range of days then you would have to edit all references to correlated dates such as 13.0.0.0.0 = 12/21/2012 and tables of baktun endings in this and the article about the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar to reflect this uncertainty. The authors of the reference that was cited were wrong. The debate over which constant to use was dead and burried before Schele and Freidel used of the 584,285 correlation in A Forest of Kings. This muddied the waters of this subject considerably and is the reason that the Thompson correlation is sometimes refered to as the Lounsbury or Astronomical correlation. Joe Kress is correct in his text clarifiying the correlation.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.193.87.154 (talk • contribs) 22 May 2007.

That edit didn't at all intend to imply that a range of dates equalled a correlation, though re-reviewing I can see it was ambiguously phrased - my bad. It was meant to note the particular triad of consecutive dates which, post-Thompson, have found general acceptance in the literature, even if one of them is pretty-much discounted nowadays and the choice between the other two is 'muddied'. Whether or not the '283 constant has, or should have, won out overall, the article still needs to deal with the fact that modern authentic and reliable sources are not unanimous on this point. It should probably be better explained in the text.--cjllw ʘ TALK 01:27, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

A Forest of Kings is modern. In this context I don't know what you mean by authentic. It's not reliable. Linda's reasons for using the 584,285 correlation were lousy. She didn't know any better and she didn't care because the book was meant to be popular, not for academics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.193.87.154 (talk • contribs) 14:56, May 26, 2007 UTC