The Antikythera Mechanism (Computer - 56BC)

Economist ^ | 9-19-2002

[SunkenCiv]

Interestingly enough, somewhere along the line I read that a machine very like this one -- and perhaps this very machine -- was described by a contemporary writer. Perhaps it's quoted in one of the similar topics.

[SunkenCiv]

Also... a while back I picked up Jacques Cousteau's old stuff on DVD. Boy, that guy sure did harp about how humans were going to ensure their own extinction because they raped the environment. What a whiner.

Anyway, one of the shows shows them diving on the same wreck (if memory serves -- I don't have the disks here or I'd check) and coming up with (for example) a missing piece of a small bronze statue recovered 100 years ago. S'cool. The Antikythera mechanism is shown on museum display.

[sinanju]

I well remember ol' Jack Cousteau's standard fundrasing pitch back in the seventies: that man would pollute the oceans to death and then we would all asphyxiate.

Nevertheless, things have come down quite a ways since the Kon-Tiki days when the flying fish and bonitos would practically throw themselves at Thor Hyerdahl and co. ("to starve to death was impossible").

[AFreeBird]

Actually, I believe it was more of a celestrial computer.

[S0122017]

That tallies with ancient sources that refer to such devices. Cicero, writing in the first century BC, mentions an instrument “recently constructed by our friend Poseidonius, which at each revolution reproduces the same motions of the sun, the moon and the five planets.” Archimedes is also said to have made a small planetarium, and two such devices were said to have been rescued from Syracuse when it fell in 212BC. This reconstruction suggests such references can now be taken literally.

Eh? So they used to be taken symbolically as opposed to literally?

[Question_Assumptions]

Eh? So they used to be taken symbolically as opposed to literally?

That's how historiand and archaeologists deal with writing that contradicts their favorite theory. They claim the writing was symbolic rather than literal or simply dismiss it. Much easier that way.

[SunkenCiv]

:'D

[Professional Engineer]

A true geezer geek device.

[sionnsar]

Thanks to Professional Engineer for the ping!

Geezer Geek ping.

This is a very low-volume ping list (typically days to weeks between pings).
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this list.

[JoeSixPack1]

So was this ancient device considered a "jig", a "fixture" a "scale" or "clock"? :-)

[NicknamedBob]

So why was it on a ship?

The most useful device on a ship of that time would have offered a way to know either the exact time or the exact longitude.

Latitude was easily calculable from almost any sighting, but the altitude of Mars above the horizon would have given the exact longitude as well. From limited sighting information, these navigators would have been able to make extremely accurate voyages.

[TChris]

For another, there is a **reason** that our language calls them planetary gears, historically.

Except that this type of gear set is not what our language calls planetary gears.

Planetary gears are named that because the gears themselves are arranged to orbit around a central point, not just to calculate the orbits of planets.

[wizr]

Thanks for the ping. We are just at the tip of the iceberg on this old earth's history.

Saw a program on the History Channel today about the "Real Indiana Jones's". There is so much to be learned about past inhabitants.

[SunkenCiv]

Revealed: world's oldest computer
by Helena Smith
The Observer
Sunday August 20, 2006

It looks like a heap of rubbish, feels like flaky pastry and has been linked to aliens. For decades, scientists have puzzled over the complex collection of cogs, wheels and dials seen as the most sophisticated object from antiquity, writes Helena Smith. But 102 years after the discovery of the calcium-encrusted bronze mechanism on the ocean floor, hidden inscriptions show that it is the world's oldest computer, used to map the motions of the sun, moon and planets... Known as the Antikythera mechanism and made before the birth of Christ, the instrument was found by sponge divers amid the wreckage of a cargo ship that sunk off the tiny island of Antikythera in 80BC. To date, no other appears to have survived... For years scholars had surmised that the object was an astronomical showpiece, navigational instrument or rich man's toy. The Roman Cicero described the device as being for 'after-dinner entertainment'. But many experts say it could change how the history of science is written. 'In many ways, it was the first analogue computer,' said Professor Theodosios Tassios of the National Technical University of Athens. 'It will change the way we look at the ancients' technological achievements.'

[SunkenCiv]

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