00:00Darkness comes right at noon. What is it? The end of the world? Are you getting blind?
00:06Is some kind of giant asteroid moving toward Earth? Oh, don't worry, it's just an eclipse,
00:13a cosmic event on a planetary scale that isn't scary at all. It's a moment when the moon passes
00:19in front of the sun, and the planet plunges into darkness for a short time. When this happens,
00:25we're not surprised, as scientists usually report on an eclipse several months in advance.
00:31With the help of astronomical calculations and mathematical models, they predict the
00:35positions of the sun and moon for many, many years ahead. But what happened to people in the past?
00:42A hundred? Five hundred? A thousand years ago? A farmer goes to work in the field and suddenly
00:48the whole area is plunged into darkness. He knows it's morning, but what's happening?
00:53Or sailors who travel the seas and oceans and suddenly notice that the horizon and the sky
00:59are getting too dark, as if someone had switched off the light. Imagine the primal horror they felt.
01:07But in reality, people didn't panic. Even before the invention of computers,
01:12giant telescopes, and satellites, people could predict the time of an eclipse in advance.
01:18How did they do it? People in the past were much smarter than some of us think.
01:22Let's see how they performed astronomical calculations using the example of the Maya
01:27civilization and their famous eclipse calendar.
01:32So in case you didn't know, the Maya are an indigenous people of Mesoamerica who lived in
01:37southern Mexico, northern Belize, and Guatemala.
01:41By the way, the word lived is not very fitting. These people are still alive.
01:46At the beginning of the 21st century, more than 5 million people spoke 30 Maya languages.
01:52Before the Spanish conquest, this civilization was one of the most advanced and complex in the world.
01:59The first Maya people appeared here as early as 1500 BCE.
02:04By 200 CE, the Maya had already built entire cities with pyramids, courtyards, temples, and infrastructure.
02:12The Maya were known for their calendars and astronomical predictions.
02:18Many of you have probably heard of the Mayan calendar, whose chronology ended in 2012,
02:24so a lot of people thought the apocalypse would start that year.
02:28Fortunately, nothing happened.
02:30Another Maya invention was the eclipse calendar, which helped these people predict eclipses.
02:35For a long time, scientists couldn't figure out how this calendar worked.
02:40But now, they finally have the answer.
02:44It all began with the Dresden Codex, a book from the 11th or 12th century.
02:51It has 78 pages made of bark paper and contains knowledge about astronomy, astrology, the seasons,
02:58and medicine.
02:59It was one of the few books that remained intact after the Spanish conquest of Maya territory.
03:05The dates of eclipses used to be very important to people.
03:10But why?
03:11Did they want to take a day off on that day and have parties?
03:14Something like that.
03:16Only those parties were scary, dark, ancient rituals.
03:20And there was definitely nothing funny about them.
03:23The Maya assumed that the moment when the light of the sun was obscured by the moon
03:28was some kind of sign from the mythological creatures they worshipped.
03:32It was dark in the middle of the day, and the Maya used this time for their sinister rituals.
03:38They hoped these actions would please the deities, bringing good harvests, protection from enemies,
03:45renewal of nature, or other blessings.
03:47We won't go into details.
03:49The only important thing is that the Maya wanted to know the dates of the eclipses
03:53to prepare for the rituals in advance.
03:56For this purpose, they created the eclipse calendar.
04:01One of the tables in the Dresden Codex shows 405 lunar months.
04:06One such month equals one full orbit of the moon around the Earth, which is about 29 days.
04:13The Maya priests used these calculations to predict eclipses for about 700 years ahead.
04:20With the help of this calendar, they knew the day of the eclipse.
04:23However, modern scientists could not understand how the Maya used this thing.
04:29But recently, they found the answer.
04:32So, the Maya observed the moon and the sun every day.
04:36By observing how the moon moves across the sky,
04:39they figured out that it takes about 29 days to pass from one new moon to the next.
04:45Then, the Maya noticed that sometimes the moon blocked the sun.
04:49And those eclipses didn't occur at random, but in certain cycles.
04:55They created a large calendar with numbered lunar months.
04:58One month, two months, three months, and so on up to 405 months.
05:05During some months, the moon completely blocked the sun, and during others, only partially.
05:11The Maya noted exactly which days these eclipses happened.
05:14They recorded the moon's position for 405 months.
05:19With these notes, they could predict where the moon would be for the next 405 months,
05:24and then the next, repeating for hundreds of years.
05:28In simple words, they started the calendar anew after passing this deadline.
05:33At least, that's what modern scientists thought.
05:36But it was a mistake.
05:37The moon doesn't orbit the Earth in exactly the same time every month.
05:43Some months, it takes a little longer.
05:45Some months, a little shorter.
05:47Just a few hours more or less than the last orbit.
05:50Of course, such changes in the schedule were insignificant.
05:54But there were many of them.
05:56And this made the calendar incorrect.
05:59Imagine that you're only a minute late for a meeting with your friends.
06:02It's okay.
06:03But if you've been running late for three months, then you've already got about a 90-minute delay.
06:09On the Mayan calendar, which showed 405 months, there were many more of those extra hours.
06:17If the Maya always used the last number from one table to start the next one,
06:21their eclipse predictions would slowly become wrong.
06:25The mistakes would grow bigger each time they reset this table.
06:28Instead, the Maya probably began a new table at the 358th month of the old one.
06:35In this case, their predictions for when the sun and moon line up would only be about 2 hours and 20 minutes too early.
06:42Which is very accurate for that time.
06:44If we compare the ancient table with what we know today about eclipse cycles,
06:50we'll find that this method would let the Maya correctly predict every solar eclipse seen in their lands between 350 and 1150 CE.
06:59These small corrections kept the table working well for a very long time.
07:04Scientists are sure that with these updates, the table would stay accurate for centuries,
07:09with mistakes of less than 51 minutes over 134 years.
07:13This shows how advanced Maya math was.
07:17It also reveals how deeply the Maya connected their lives and beliefs to the movements of the sun, moon, and stars.
07:26We do a similar thing when we have a leap year.
07:29February usually has 28 days, but every 4 years, it gets the next day, making 29.
07:35Earth goes around the sun not in exactly one year, as we usually think, but in one year plus about 6 extra hours.
07:45Because these extra hours add up over time, after a few years, they become a whole extra day.
07:51To keep our calendar correct, we add this extra day to the end of February.
07:55This day is called leap day.
07:57This leads to small time errors, so we consider them in a leap year.
08:03The Maya did about the same thing with the eclipse calendar.
08:07But how did they choose the reference points for their astronomical calculations?
08:11We don't know.
08:12They did it without computers, telescopes, or other modern technology.
08:17They were just very good at observing nature.
08:20By the way, a similar system of cycles made people believe that the end of the world would happen in 2012.
08:28The Maya created a calendar that began in 3144 BCE and ended on December 21, 2012.
08:37The Maya saw this as the date of ending the old cycle and starting a new one.
08:42But our modern culture has turned this point into the end of the world.
08:45In addition to calendars, the Maya built unique architectural structures.
08:51They invented one of the most advanced writing systems.
08:54They were also big fans of liquid chocolate.
08:57They grew cocoa trees, then plucked the beans, dried, ground, and mixed these crushed beans with water.
09:04They warmed it up and got a frothy and very bitter drink.
09:08To make it sweeter, they added honey to it.
09:11But they could also throw chili peppers and other spices in there.
09:14Maya did many interesting things.
09:18But this is a topic for another video.
09:21That's it for today.
09:22So hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:27Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
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