Mayan city 'discovered' by 15-year-old boy

[Antonio]

“15-year-old Canadian William Gadoury has translated his interest in the Mayan civilization into two remarkable discoveries. Gadoury noticed that the locations of the biggest Mayan cities matched the locations of the stars in Mayan constellations. Furthermore, the star charts pointed to the existence of a previously unknown city, the ruins of which have since been uncovered by satellite photography.”

http://kottke.org/tag/William%20Gadoury

Meanwhile, some old school archaeologists show skepticism. They hate to think out of their boxes, not to mention being beaten by a kid!!! 

[In Stitches]

I read that it might actually be a pot farm.

[Antonio]

"It's quite impressive. The depth of his research -- from the stars to the satellite imagery to the foliage to the remains -- is incredible," De Lisle said.

For Van Stone, his sense of skepticism towards this "discovery" is mixed with excitement that, at the very least, a 15 year old is injecting new ideas into his field. Ninety-nine percent of ideas in science turn out to be wrong -- but many wrong ideas are still worth looking into, Van Stone said.

"I'm delighted that the Space Agency in Canada has been open to this kid's idea and giving him good maps," he said. "This kid's ideas are probably not right, but I don't want to discourage anyone about trying out ideas." CBS NEWS

The kid was rewarded for thinking "out of the box", with a theory pointing into a fresh direction. He's no pothead and doesn't need all this noise and circus around his work. Somehow, this reminds me the controversy of the Orion correlation theory:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory

[Barbara Ybarra]

Poor kid, stuck his nose into the world of the big ego crushers.  It's so rude for anyone to say it is garbage science.  Yes, there are stupid tv shows out there that declare that every geometrically cut rock was fashioned by aliens, but do they have to crush the dreams of a serious young student like this one.  I hope someone finances an expedition to go and look.  That would be so awesome if he was right.

[Antonio]

Excusez moi, Barbara... but i will not cry for his misery! 

“Semaine extraordinaire avec vous la gang du Québec...ça été une expérience sans précédent et j'espère qu'on va se revoir. J'ai surpassé mes attentes en remportant une médaille d'or, le prix défis Découverte, le prix de l'excellence en astronomie et le prix coup de coeur de l'université McGill (accompagner d'une bourse d'étude). Sur ce à l'année prochaine!” William Gadoury 22/5

https://www.facebook.com/wgadoury