One is tempted to think that the Antikythera device is the very one seen by Cicero.Did the Ancient Greeks Make a Computer?[O]ne retired professor insisted that the device had to be a modern orrery -- of the kind he had seen as a child used to demonstrate the Copernican system -- which had somehow intruded on the wreck... Price persuaded the Greek authorities to let his collaborator, Dr. Karakalos, take gammalographs and x-radiographs of the fragments. These revealed so much detail, so clearly, that after analyzing them the two men could confidently relate the gear ratios to known astronomical and calendrical data... There is no mention of the Anrikythera device in ancient literature. But a similar mechanism was described by Cicero, and later by Ovid and others: this was an ingenious planetarium, simulating the movements of the sun, the moon, and five planets, that had been devised in the third century B.C. by Archimedes. Cicero, incidentally, was on Rhodes between 79 and 77 B.C., just when the Anrikythera mechanism was presumably lost at sea; while there he saw a geared planetarium that may have been built by Posidonios, a renowned geographer (among other things) who lectured in Rhodes. The Anrikythera device derives, then, from Archimedes, either by a gradual, unrecorded evolution or by the massive innovation of some unknown genius, perhaps of the school of Posidonios. If only for his use of the differential gear, "one of the greatest basic mechanical inventions of all time," its maker should, says Price, "be accorded the highest honors."
by Ormonde deKay Jr
and Richard Cravens
"Mysteries of the Past", p 156
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The Antikythera mechanismMichael Wright, the curator of mechanical engineering at the Science Museum in London, has based his new analysis on detailed X-rays of the mechanism using a technique called linear tomography. This involves moving an X-ray source, the film and the object being investigated relative to one another, so that only features in a particular plane come into focus. Analysis of the resulting images, carried out in conjunction with Allan Bromley, a computer scientist at Sydney University, found the exact position of each gear, and suggested that Price was wrong in several respects... It also provides strong support for Price's theory. He believed that the mechanism was strongly suggestive of an ancient Greek tradition of complex mechanical technology which, transmitted via the Arab world, formed the basis of European clockmaking techniques. This fits with another, smaller device that was acquired in 1983 by the Science Museum, which models the motions of the sun and moon. Dating from the sixth century AD, it provides a previously missing link between the Antikythera mechanism and later Islamic calendar computers, such as the 13th century example at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. That device, in turn, uses techniques described in a manuscript written by al-Biruni, an Arab astronomer, around 1000AD.
The Economist
Sep 19th 2002
Coolbeans.
Pictures of a Mechanism
by Bill Casselman
Some of the most significant progress on chronometers was done by a single researcher, working alone in England. And Charles Babbage's "difference engine" dates back about two hundred years.
The mechanisms of both devices could have been produced anytime during the last four thousand years, indeed, over and over again -- and then, of course, lost again.
Careful measurement, and artful craftsmanship, which has been available since before the historical record began, is all that is required. And perhaps a gullible and tolerant patron...
Did The Ancient Greeks Make A Computer?
An Article | 1977 | Lionel Casson
Posted on 11/01/2003 9:21:03 AM PST by Holly_P
Very interesting.
Saw this on TV several weeks ago...fascinating. We only think we are smarter than man 2000 years ago because of our machines. Maybe something like this will force us to give up such silly notions.
A gifted faker name Alexander founded an oracle in a backwater on the south shore of the Black Sea. Here, for stiff prices, a talking serpent he had rigged up answered questions for the local hayseeds... (p 135)
Travel in the Ancient World
by Lionel Casson
Was the Antikythera Mechanism the world's first computer?Andrew Ramsey, X-Tek's computer-tomography specialist, who was operating the viewer, zoomed around inside the 3-D representation until he found the right slice. Written on the side of the gear were the letters "M" and "E" -- "ME." Was this the maker's mark? Or could "ME" mean "Part 45"? ("ME" is the symbol for forty-five in ancient Greek.) Freeth joked that Mike Edmunds had scratched his initials on the fragment. Others suggested that this particular piece of the Mechanism could have been recycled, and that the "ME" was left over from some earlier device.
by John Seabrook
The New Yorker
May 14, 2007
Altogether, the team salvaged about a thousand new letters and inscriptions from the Mechanism -- doubling the number available to Price. Together with earlier imaging, the new inscriptions support theories that both Price and Wright had advanced. On Fragment E, for example, the group read "235 divisions on the spiral." "I was amazed," Freeth said. "This completely vindicated Price's idea of the Metonic cycle of two hundred and thirty-five lunar months on the upper back dial." They also read words explaining that on the extremity of "the pointer stands a little golden sphere," which probably refers to a representation of the sun on the sun pointer that went around the zodiac dial at the front of the Mechanism. Wright had proposed that the rings of the back dials were made in the form of spirals; the word eliki, meaning "spiral," can be seen on Fragment E. On Fragment 22, the number "223" has been observed, pointing to the use of the saros dial as an eclipse indicator.
..."So you think that the letters 'ME' -- "
"Precisely," Wright interjected. "I think they must relate to whatever that bit of metal was used for before."
The most amazing thing about the Antikythera Mechanism, for my money, is that some clever geek over at slashdot actually got the thing to boot linux. Amazing.
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