托福阅读材料之世界末日将延期？

       “原定2012世界末日”将延后

A recent research has showed that the mythological date of the "end of days" may be off by 50 to 100 years.

一项研究显示，具有神话色彩的世界末日的日期可能要向后推迟50年到100年。

To convert the ancient Mayan calendar to the Gregorian (or modern) calendar, scholars use a numerical value (called the GMT). But Gerardo Aldana, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says the data supporting the widely-adopted conversion factor may be invalid.

学者们通常是借助一个被称为“GMT常量”的数值，将古玛雅历法转换成公历(现代历法)。不过美国加州大学圣巴巴拉分校格拉尔多·阿尔达纳教授对此表示质疑，他说支持广泛采用的历法转换数值可能是无效的。

In a chapter in the book "Calendars and Years II: Astronomy and Time in the Ancient and Medieval World," Aldana casts doubt on the accuracy of the Mayan calendar correlation, saying that the 2012 prophecy as well as other dates may be off.

格拉尔多在其著作《历法与纪年II——远古与中世纪世界天文与时间》中，质疑玛雅历法的准确性，他说2012年世界末日的日期以及其他相关日期可能都会有所延迟。

The GMT constant, named for early Mayan scholars Joseph Goodman, Juan Martinez-Hernandez and J. Eric S. Thompson, is partly based on astronomical events. Those early Mayanists relied heavily on dates found in colonial documents written in Mayan languages and recorded in the Latin alphabet.

“GMT常量”是为了纪念早期三位研究玛雅文化的学者约瑟夫·古德曼、胡安·马丁斯·埃尔南德斯和J艾瑞克S 汤普森而命名，“GMT常量”部分是基于天文学事件。这些早期的玛雅文化学者在很大程度上依赖殖民档案文件中数据，这些数据是用玛雅文字书写和拉丁字母记录的。

A later scholar, American linguist and anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury, further supported the GMT constant.

However, Aldana found weaknesses in Lounsbury's work that cause the argument behind the GMT constant to fall "like a stack of cards."

后来一位学者、美国语言学家和人类学家弗洛伊德 劳恩斯伯里进一步支持“GMT常量”。

但是，阿尔达纳发现劳恩斯伯里工作中的错误，这些错误导致了人们对“GMT常量”的质疑，就像是“一堆卡片”轰然倒塌。

"This may not seem to be much, but what it does is destabilize the entire argument," Aldana said, "A few scholars have stood up and said, ‘No, the GMT is wrong.' But in my opinion, what they've done is try to provide alternatives

without looking at why the GMT is wrong in the first place."

阿尔达纳说：“(错误)可能看起来并不是太多，但是它们的确破坏了整个论证。一些学者站起来说。‘是的，GMT常量是错误的。’但是，在我看来,他们所作的就是寻求代替方法，但是并没有去探究为什么GMT常量在最初的时候就是错误的。”

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