|
graceadieu -> RE: Total Lunar Eclipse on Monday!! (12/20/2010 9:21:16 AM)
|
We're going to try to see it. It's supposed to be "mostly clear" tonight, so hopefully it'll be clear enough to see it. I remember the one back in '03, that was pretty sweet. :)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
So these ancient people without computers, calculators or maybe even without paper figured out how to build this shit that would indicate i.e. the solistaces, but also those lunastices. They tell you that people only lived to be 35 back then but I think that is bullshit. On an eighteen year cycle it would be practically impossible to figure this out, once it happened twice you would be dead. Things like this is why I disbelieve all the crap about how much longer we live now. I think that in the past people could live longer, not poisoned or malnourished, but many were killed by circumstance. Whether it was war or some strange disease many died young. Remember the definition of "average". All these people only lived to be ON AVERAGE thirty something. Some died at birth, some died in wars, some died who knows. But the potential lifespan was much longer, if one avoided the pitfalls.
Sure. Average lifespan includes the very large # of people that died before reaching adulthood, or like you say, the people that died fighting in wars (mostly young men I imagine). So if the average lifespan is 35, you'd have to have a decent number of people that lived to 50 or 60 years old.
Also, the Incas had a sort of writing system using strings. So they may have "written" down data about the cycles, and then they'd have records going back quite a bit anyway.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
Soon I'll find out where I came up with this 456 year shit. Maybe there is something unusual about this time, something that doesn't happen every few years. I'll find it. Or maybe something got confused, wouldn't be the first time. I'll get back to you on it, I didn't pull that number out of a hat.
On the NASA website it says the last time there was a lunar eclipse on the winter solstice was in the 1600s, so maybe that's where you got the number. Though in that case it'd be more like 356 years.
|
|
|
|
