Is December 21, 2012 supposed to be day the world ends?
This question is related to the Mayan calendar. Actually, the Maya have several calendars. The one everyone is discussing this year is the long count calendar, where the current cycle ends 12/21/2012. This happens to be the winter solstice, or shortest day of the year.
The long count calendar is a series of cycles, each an era of humankind from the Maya point of view. The next new cycle lands on 12/21/2012. The Maya had no expectations that there wouldn't be a long count cycle to follow the current cycle. But the new cycle could represent another new era for humankind.
The Maya were amazing mathematicians and astronomers for their time, and often predicted future events. The intriguing part of this to me is that they have very few predictions of events following 12/21/2012.
This 2012 concept was one of the inspirations of Visions 2012: The Nostradamus Design.
Visions 2012: The Nostradamus Design