Lego Antikythera Mechanism

YouTube ^ | 09 Dec 2010 | NatureVideoChannel

[Ro_Thunder]

Cool video of the Antikythera Mechanism rebuilt in Lego, and how it works.

[Ro_Thunder]

I just wonder how much knowledge was lost in the destruction of the library at Alexandria.

Seriously - the 'ancients' built his machine thousands of years ago. What else did they know? And why don't we know, now?

[Darksheare]

“And why don’t we know, now? “

Because those lovely barbarians known as “Mohammetans” burned the library of Alexandria.
And they’re still stuck in the third or sixth century.

[thesearethetimes...]

Amazing!

Geek Mom Bump :)

[filospinato]

Fantastic, thanks! I feel less bad about collecting and playing with LEGO as an adult.

[vanilla swirl]

save

[onona]

That is awesome !

[colinhester]

I hope Lego releases this set. That is so over the top. Thanks for sharing.....C

[fieldmarshaldj]

That’s not a set, that’s a scientific experiment. I can tell you it won’t be released, but you could probably acquire all but the panels if you found out the number and style of pieces and order them all from Lego.com (which won’t be cheap).

[bolobaby]

“BCE.”

Sigh.

[Vendome]

Cool.

No go make something that can rebuild the Pyramids of Giza.

[Lurker]

For later.

[norton]

And here I sit staring at the skiploader I finally managed to complete with an erector set.

[battousai]

Fantastic, thanks! I feel less bad about collecting and playing with LEGO as an adult.

/me slowly raises arm as well :)

[Ro_Thunder]

Consider BCE as I do

Before
Christ
Enters

They can call it whatever they want, but you know, they still count from the time of Christ, and his birth, so their fault.

[Talisker]

I just wonder how much knowledge was lost in the destruction of the library at Alexandria. Seriously - the 'ancients' built his machine thousands of years ago. What else did they know? And why don't we know, now?

Why do you think the knowledge was lost? Just because the library was burned (several times, in fact), doesn't mean anything of importance was lost at all.

Perhaps it was moved into... safekeeping... first.

Why?

Knowledge is power, that's why.

[SunkenCiv]

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[dsc]

I think my head just exploded.

Wish I had time and money to hire somebody smart to go over that with me.

[bert]

Actually, Julius Caesar burned the library. The action of which you speak was trivial compared to that of Caesar.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I’m sorry, while it’s very impressive, tt looks like an implementation of Derek J. de Solla Price’s interpertation of Antikythera Mechanicism. Price died in 1983, before high resolution tomographs of it were made and before “Part E” was recognized as part of the mechanism. The device had been submerged in the sea for almost 20 centuries before being discovered in 1900.

The actual device is more sophisticated in many ways than Price imagined, although Price inferred the existence of differential gears almost 1500 years before they are known to have been used, there is no direct evidence of their use in the mechanism and current “best” reconstructions do not employ them.

The device was pre-Ptolemy and probably incorporates astronomy as understood by Hipparcos but did not incorporate the eccentric orbit invented by Ptolmey, but did include epicycles which apparently were known to, if not invented by Hipparcos. Hipparcos based much his astronomy on the observations of the ancient Babylonians. Direct knowledge of Babylonian astronomy is very fragmentary, but Hipparcos incorporated much of it into his own. Our knowledge of Hipparcos is almost soley through Ptolemy, who credits Hipparcos quite generously. Our knowledge of Ptolemy is only through Arab translations of Almagest.

It would be inaccurate to say that we had no clue that such mechanism existed. There are numerous accounts of such mechanism by ancient authors, including Cicero. According to Cicero, Marcellus, the Roman General who lead the sack of Syracuse and ordered that no harm befall Archimedes, kept only one artefact of the loot for himself, a device attributed to Archimedes whose function as described by Cicero was remarkably similar to the Antikythera Mechanism. It is known to have been kept by Marcellus’ family for six generations.

Micheal Wright, who spent decades studying the device and even built his own homemade tomograph to photograph it in the 1980’s, has build a more faithful reconstruct in brass, with original inscriptions in Greek. To see Mr. Wright’s delightful device see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eUibFQKJqI

For a fascinating account of the Mechanism, published in 2009 see: http://www.decodingtheheavens.com/ The author, Jo Marchant, is the narrator of the Micheal Wright video.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

It is not at all clear how much destruction of the library can be attributed to Ceasar and even his critics grant that any damage was incidental to burning the Egyptian Navy of Ptolemy XIII. The Library and adjoining buildings were clearly open for business almost immediately after the siege in 48 BC and for centuries later. The library survived at least until the time of the Caliphate, but did not survive it. One story has it that when Caliph Omar’s General Amr asked for instructions on what to do with the library Omar wrote back, “If those books are in agreement with the Quran, we have no need of them; and if these are opposed to the Quran they are heresy, therefore destroy them all.”

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Wish I had time and money to hire somebody smart to go over that with me.

Go to the library: http://www.decodingtheheavens.com/ Jo Marchant will fill you in.

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

That’s correct.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Because those lovely barbarians known as “Mohammetans” burned the library of Alexandria.

In fairness, almost all of what we know of classical Greek literature, mathematics and science is from translations and copies that came down to us from the Islamic University at Damascus. Arabic and Persian scholarship in the Middle Ages was of a very high standard, outstripping Europe by centuries. One side effect of the Crusades was to expose Europeans to their own intellectual heritage. To some extend Roman and Greek writings were seen as anti-Christian or at least in competition with Christianity during the "dark ages".

Today, it is the Islamists who are regressive and closed minded.

[SunkenCiv]

Right. There's a persistent myth that Caesar burned the library, but since it is known to have continued to exist thereafter, and the line that describes the event cites "some books which chanced to be there". The library was known as "the ships' library" because its founder had ships in the very busy port searched, any books found removed and copied, and the copies taken back to the ship, with the original archived.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

George Bernard Shaw helped propagate the anti-Ceasar slander, in part because Shaw was a smartass and that’s what a smartass would do.

[new cruelty]

Amazing.

Bookmarking for later.

Btw, I think I accidentally reported this as abuse, when I only meant to post a reply! Sorry.

[Little Ray]

Well..., Much as I hate Islam, I have to confess that there was a little looting and burning by Romans and Christians before the Moslems finished the job.

[RegulatorCountry]

Wow, somebody just has too much time on his hands, lol. But it is fascinating. Legos were my favorite toy as a child, and I had some interest in clockwork-type mechanisms. My maternal grandmother was a tad peculiar, almost entirely illiterate, part indian but descended from a prominent, old settler German family, had a house full of inherited cuckoo clocks, some quite old and elaborate. I tried to figure one of them out and recreate it with Legos. Didn’t succeed.

[FourPeas]

Very cool. Thanks for the ping.

[FourPeas]

Feel badly about playing with Legos as an adult? Banish the thought!

To take constructing with Legos to another level, you might take a look at Lego Digital Designer. Yes, you can now design your own Lego creation ~and~ order it in kit form (be prepared for sticker shock). Beware, though, it's addicting.

[SunkenCiv]

Plus, he wore that ghoti.

[SunkenCiv]

[RegulatorCountry]

Carthenge, lol.

[TheOldLady]

Except that the library was burned before Jesus was born.

But I'm sure that the mozlems would have burned it if they had had the chance.

[TheOldLady]

That is just amazing.

[TheOldLady]

BCE = Before Christian Era.

And of course:

CE = Christian Era

Ha ha ha! Did they think we wouldn’t get around their nonsense? They’ll have to change it again now. Ha ha ha!

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[dsc]

“Go to the library: http://www.decodingtheheavens.com/ Jo Marchant will fill you in.”

Thanks.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure, have a great weekend. Two weeks until Christmas!

[TheOldLady]

Oh, my mistake. Apparently almost everybody burned the Library from time to time for more than a half-millennium. I don’t know enough about it to argue, so I give up. (I’m ignorant, not stupid. Usually.)

[SunkenCiv]

:’) The shopping carts? ;’)

[Antoninus]

Actually, Julius Caesar burned the library. The action of which you speak was trivial compared to that of Caesar.

The library was partially burned many times and then rebuilt. But the final blow was that administered by the enlightened adherents of Mahomet.

[Antoninus]

In fairness, almost all of what we know of classical Greek literature, mathematics and science is from translations and copies that came down to us from the Islamic University at Damascus. Arabic and Persian scholarship in the Middle Ages was of a very high standard, outstripping Europe by centuries.

That is true only if you discount Byzantium which was still the epicenter of classical learning and civilization deep into the middle ages. And it should be remembered that Syria and the near-east was still majority Christian for a long time after the Muslim conquest. This is not to say that Muslim scholars played no role at all in transmitting classical scholarship. In my opinion, their role has been over-estimated.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Clearly, Ptolemy exclusively and Euclid primarily came back to Europe through Arab translations. Fragmentary copies of Euclid have been found, but our knowledge of Euclid is really through Damascus and through the its Islamic university. A great deal would have been lost without them. Ptolemy's Syntaxis is known today by its Arabic name, Almagest.

[bigheadfred]

Ahhhh. Who needs Lego? The 15 month old grandson and I set up a fine looking Stonehenge with wood blocks last night. Both versions. The original (mostly grandpa), and the way it appears today (mostly grandson). :-)

[zeugma]

There are lots moreof us AFLs than you’d ever imagine.

[BenLurkin]

It isn't so sure that gizmo wasn't a later artifact that just happened to land on an older wreck.

[TheOldLady]

Of course. Why? Is this thread about anything else?   :-p

[Peanut Gallery]

My son enjoys designing ‘mini-kits’ using Lego Designer. He gets the part numbers for each piece from the lego website, and then we go to the Lego Store (there is one about 10 miles from our house) and place the order there instead of ordering online from home. It saves shipping fees and is much less expensive than ordering using the lego designer software. If you do not have a Lego store near you, you will still have to pay shipping, but ordering from the online store should still be less expensive than ordering from the lego design software.

The way it works is that you place the order, but before submitting it, you purchase a gift card for the total amount. Then when you submit the order, the store clerk overrides the shipping fee, and you pay using the gift card.