2000 Year Old Computer, The Antikythera Mechanism - Jaw Dropping new Imagery
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I thought my capacity for sheer jaw-dropping amazement at the Antikythera mechanism had been well and truly exhausted – until last night. The puzzling instrument is a clockwork computer from ancient Greece that used a fiendishly complex assembly of meshed cogs to simulate the movement of the planets, predict lunar eclipses and indicate the dates of major sporting events.
The clockwork technology in the device was already known to be centuries ahead of its time, but new evidence suggests that the enigmatic machine is even older than scientists had realised. “It is the most important scientific artefact known from the ancient world,” said Jo Marchant, who has written a compelling book on the find called Decoding the Heavens. “There’s nothing else like it for a thousand years afterwards.”
First, a quick recap. The Antikythera mechanism was discovered by sponge divers in 1901 who chanced upon the wreck of a Roman vessel off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. The ship was filled with bronze statues, pottery and glassware – booty that had been plundered from across the ancient Greek world.
At first no one noticed the corroded lump of cogs among the treasures, but the mechanism has since attracted the, at times, obsessive interest of a small group of scientists. What we now know about the mechanism and its purpose is a fascinating tale of scientific rivalry, low-down skulduggery and eventual glory.
There is much still to learn about where the machine came from, who made it and what it was for, but the best guess seems to be that it was more must-have executive toy than useful gadget. It modelled the state-of-the-art astronomy of the time: a universe with the Earth at the centre with planets following circular orbits that included apparent wobbles called epicycles.
The mechanism was probably not used for navigation but perhaps served more as a beautiful representation of an ordered, clockwork universe. “Something to elevate the spirit and get closer to God or the true meaning of things,” as Marchant put it during a talk at the Royal Institution in London last night.
So what about the new stuff? Research from Prof Alexander Jones of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York, which has yet to be published, suggests that rather than dating from the 1st century BC the Antikythera mechanism may in fact have been constructed in the preceding century.
The new data concerns the four-year Olympiad dial, which has the names of significant Greek games etched into it – Isthmia, Olympia, Nemea, Pythia and Naa (plus one other that hasn’t been deciphered). The first four were major games known throughout the ancient world, but the Naa games, held near Dodona in northwest Greece, were a much more provincial affair that would only have been of local interest. “One possibility is that it was made by or for somebody in Naa,” said Marchant, who described the clockwork computer on the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast last year.
This also helps to pin down the date because the Romans took over that region in the 2nd century BC. A Greek-inscribed gadget like this, reasons Jones, would not have been made after the Romans took charge.
The highlight of Marchant’s talk, though, was a new animation of the Antikythera device that brings it to life like nothing I have seen before. “That’s one of my favourite things at the moment,” said Marchant as the packed audience at the Royal Institution broke into spontaneous applause after watching the animation in stunned silence. I think I agree.
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Boring. They could have invented a boat that wouldn’t sink, to carry it, but no, thousands had to die in storms and unchartered waters because they were busy with this crap.
And while you are busy eating your fat donuts and high fructose corn syrup, invading other countries, spending trillions on war and deceiving the world with your countries lies, people are starving to death in Africa. You Americans are full of BS.
You do realize they make decaf…right?
Do you realise Americans are the fattest nation on earth.
Americans tell the most lies.
Americans swear the most.
Americans have never won any war.
As soon as America got a black president the country fell to pieces.
37.5% of Americans have a sexual transmitted disease.
45.7% of troops coming from wars are mentally ill.
America is the most Ununited nation in the world.
68% of Americans don’t trust their Neighbour.
Any person who makes all encompassing generalizations about an entire group, especially a group that includes millions of people… is a fool, or a liar.
Or both in the case of the dude with the Obama avatar
I agree with you on pretty much everything but unfortunately mexico passed USA as the fattest country in the world. you can easily look it up if you don’t believe me. here is link to them taxing sugar down their. In America they should tax every lbs that a person is over weight.
http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2014/02/mexico-to-tax-sugar-after-becoming-the-worlds-fattest-country/
America is still one of the fattest countries and last time I bought clothes their I had to get a small or a kids large because their mediums their are way to big because they had to make the sizes larger since they changed the BMI chart to make everyone happy and say they aren’t fat.