know is wrong joining me now to discuss the mayans and help a separate fact from fiction is dr william satoru know a leading mayan scholar and assistant professor in the archaeology department of boston university actress eternal welcome thanks for having me and thanks for joining us from guatemala why is there this belief that the mayans predicted the end of the world. well. a calendar that essentially keeps track of the number of days since the so-called beginning of time really since they started counting and they've generally kept track of only about five digits of that calendar that that long kept now those five digits will all turn to zero in december twenty first.