The Mayan Job

The secret behind why the world didn't come to an end on 21.12.12 - finally cracked by technology.

The wizened Mayan Chief rubbed his eyes and woke up. D-day was here. The Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve seemed to vibrate with a kind of energy he had never experienced before. He quickly logged into his laptop - he had to send a farewell message to his brothers in the Yucatán Peninsula. His Facebook account came alive –and he stared at the first post on his page with disbelief. 'The end of the world, which was scheduled for 2012, has been postponed due to some technical glitches. You are hereby ordered to carry on with your life until further notice.'

"By the might of Maximon," he roared, invoking the Mayan saint, "I'll have to get to the bottom of this. Get me the Mayan calendar. And somebody who can read it." His deputy looked at him shocked. "I keep going in circles when I try to decipher it," he muttered. "Someone who can interpret codes, perhaps?" his deputy suggested helpfully. "Nah!" the Chief sneered. "There's only one that the world knows of and you saw what he did to the Louvre and the Vatican. Get me someone who can crack computer programs, but has his values intact." "Ah, you mean an ethical hacker," the Deputy quietly sniggered into his Tzute when the Chief wasn't looking. "But why a computer professional?"

"Because," the Chief's voice grew into a whisper, "the ancient Mayan calendar is actually a representation of the world's first analog computer - the Antikythera mechanism. See the concentric circles, the gears and the wheels – while the former is carved in stone, the latter is made of metal." The deputy's jaw dropped onto the fine hand-woven Zapotec rug. "Ok, I'll get on the job," he agreed and was back a few hours later with a man who looked like a Hollywood star.

"Meet Seth Green," he introduced the visitor. The Mayan Chief surveyed him from head to toe. "Is he a certified hacker?" "I don't know about his qualification, but you should have seen him in the movie, The Italian Job. He hacked into Los Angeles' automated traffic system and created..." The Chief cut him off. "What else can he do?" "Well, according to him, he's the real Napster, so he’s the guy we should be thanking for all those years of listening to ‘The Final Countdown’ online in anticipation of the end of the world.”

The Chief nodded sagely and looked at Seth squarely in the eye. "Help us and I'll produce the sequel to The Italian Job for you. I know that the script – The Brazilian Job - has been in cold storage for a while now. But,” he paused, “a tactical change has to be made..." Seth jumped at the offer. "Chill, we’ll call it The Mayan Job from hereon. So what do I need to do?"

"The Mayan calendar was supposed to have predicted the end of the world on 21.12.12, so why didn't it happen?" Seth thought for a while. He then took out his tablet and busied himself with some calculations. "I got it," he jumped up. "Look, your deputy told me that the Mayan calendar was actually a representation of a computer. So you should have looked for the inscription of the date in binary, not as whole numbers. So, 21.12.2012 is written in binary as 10101.1100.11111011100. Since binary has no decimals, you get 10101110011111011100, which when converted to whole numbers is 714716, or 7.1.4716. So the end of the world is not until 4716, which is 2703 years away. Now, could we discuss the budgets for The Mayan Job?"