Director Roland Emmerich's new film, 2012, starring John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Oliver Platt, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Woody Harrelson opens this weekend. The film is loosely based on the Mayanism and the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Ann Martin is a doctoral candidate in Cornell University's department of astronomy. For the past three years, Martin has been a volunteer with Cornell's "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" service, a Web site founded by astronomy graduate students in 1997. Martin explains the Mayan Calendar/ 2012 Hoax.

Ann Martin writes:
The world will NOT end on Dec. 21, 2012. The Mayan calendar was designed to be cyclical, so the fact that the long count comes to an end in December 2012 is really of no consequence, according to Martin. Simply, it is the end of great calendar cycle in Mayan society, much like our modern society celebrated the new Millennium. It does not mean that the "world will end." In fact, the Mayan calendar does not end then and there is no evidence to suggest that the Mayans -- or anyone for that matter -- has knowledge for the world's demise. 

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