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New Clues for Antikythera Mechanism
fuzzybunny writes "The Register reports that British and Dutch scientists located a previously undetected word on the Antikythera Mechanism which seems to confirm its nature as a tool for astronomical prediction. This device is one of the world's first known geared devices; while its purpose is still not 100% clear, according to the article, 'Athens university researcher Xenophon Moussas is reported as saying the "newly discovered text seems to confirm that the mechanism was used to track planetary bodies."'"
It's also one of the earliest, if not the earliest, -known example of an analog computer.
Philosophy.
It's a navigational device that used the night sky, available to everyone in perfect sync, instead of the many calendars that many Old World societies didn't even have. Maps with directions could encode "turning points" or durations in terms of stars and planets, then limit access to them to only those with the antikythera tech.
The really interesting question is how that portable machine relates to the ancient monuments like the Pyramids, Chichen Itza, and Angkor Wat which replicate star patterns on the ground for the ages.
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make install -not war
Scientist One:
"The outstanding results obtained from X-Tek's 3-D X-rays are allowing us to make a definitive investigation of the Mechanism. I do not believe it will ever be possible to do better."
Scientist Two: "newly discovered text seems to confirm that the mechanism was used to track planetary bodies"
Scientist One:"It's still up in the air, and there's plenty of work yet to be done.""
"'What was the device actually for?' Was it a used to predict calendars? Was it simply a teaching tool?"
The last questions seem more interesting. What it did is certainly important, but what they used it for is more important. If it was intended as an amusement it is of an entirely different significance to if it was intended as a navigation aid, and different again if it was a scientific tool intended for research.
More info on the actual examination here: http://www.xtekxray.com/antikythera.htm
Can't we all just get along
Wow.
For somthing so old, it looks remarkably similar to my grandpops 1900s pocket watch.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
The greeks made similar considerable advances soon after the death of Alexander the Great. Astronomy, chemistry and mathematical advaces were common because of the information and resouces shared after Alexander the Great united what was thought to be the civilized world.
from the Wik:
It was inscribed with a text of over 2,000 characters, of which about 95% have been deciphered. The full text of the inscription has not yet been published.
Why? Go on, I DARE you... publish the text. Let's all have a look, particuarly if it says "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" over and over... Tell us what it says. We can handle it.
Scientists seem quite keen on delaying the release of their findings until such time as they Know Everything There Is To Know about [insert whatever it is here]. Haven't they heard of beta?
I am a leaf on the wind
For those wondering, the text they discovered was "...etarium Pat. Pending (1)"
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
... and then build a Beowulf cluster?
+1 fashionably cynical
I've been hearing about all of these new discoveries about the device over the past week - but I don't see *ANY* new knowledge. We hear that there is finally proof that it's an analog computer - and that finding this word proves it's an astronomical calculator - but I have a book printed 15 years ago that says exactly that. The mechanism that calculates sun and moon positions is completely well understood and has been for years. There are working replicas of the device in several museums that demonstrate how it works.
Check out the Wikipedia article.
So if these guys have really learned something new - they are failing to communicate whatever it ACTUALLY is that they've found.
www.sjbaker.org
Best. Mechanism. Evar.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
Back in 1993, I had an officemate (Bernard Gardner, working for the late Allan Bromley) who worked on doing a 3D reconstruction of this mechanism using the tomography images that had recently been done. From what I recall, they made a bit of progress, discovering that two gears that were previously thought to be joined were merely next to each other and on independent axles; the previous assumption would have resulted in a mechanism that couldn't operate (locked together). But they still really didn't know what it did, and sadly, Allan Bromley (who was one of the main people interested in this device) died in 2002.
Overall, it's a fascinating find - I never cease to be amazed at the complexity of many pre-industrial artifacts.
I'm curious as to what sort of mechanical insights - not just inscription reading - the new analysis technique can provide.
... that so many of the comments made thus far are attempts at humour.
The Antikythera Mechanism is either JOYOUSLY UPLIFTING or SOUL-CRUSHINGLY DEPRESSING. It isn't funny.
Uplifting because the human race developed the differential gear and incredibly intricate machinery TWO THOUSAND YEARS earlier than we thought, and used that technology for science.
Depressing because the human race then lobotomized itself and we practically went back to living in caves.
We had something amazing, and we lost it so utterly that we forgot we'd ever had it. Go humanity.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
The Register reports that British and Dutch scientists located a previously undetected word
May I recommend the present perfect simple tense? I think you'll find that nuanced grammar adds a delightful twist to the English language.
For instance:
Slashdot contributors and editors have discovered that applying simple grammatical principles can significantly enhance their audience's comprehension of stories posted on the site
Read Pynchon.
Most likely, it runs NetBSD. The 2006.1 release of Gentoo Linux will support it too.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
I hear that compile times are a real bitch on this old hardware.
Yeah... but the wait is worth it. Do all of the necessary optimizations and use the proper ricer gcc flags, and it will make that old hardware screaming fast.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
The device was found in a shipwreck. The ship appears to have been a Roman trader on its way back to Italy. By dating the goods on the ship the wreck has been dated to the later half of the first century B.C.
The device is inscribed. The typography is the sort that was prevelant in the later half of the first century B.C. So are the words and the grammatical structure.
Two independant means of dating accord with each other.
The specific figure 80 B.C. comes from an estimate of its age being 65 B.C. +/- 15 years, so 80 B.C. is actually the youngest it is estimated it could be. The most conservative number to cite, not an exact age.
KFG
And what makes us think that most Greeks believed in a geocentric universe? We know precious little about what they knew back then, since we have only a handful of their writings. To insinuate that we have anything like a complete map of the intellectual landscape of the time is sheerest puffery.
A minute's thought might convince us that a heliocentric model was available to them: They knew the earth was a sphere; they knew its size; they knew the sun was far enough away that its rays arrived parallel for all intents and purposes. Add to that that as soon as someone tried to build something like the Antikythera Mechanism they must perforce have noticed (as did Kepler a millennium and a half later) that it's far easier to model the heavens if you place the sun in the center rather than the earth.
Even this mechanism itself cannot be unique, as some articles about it have hinted. An automaton/clockwork/astronomical model this complex cannot have leapt full-formed from the mind of a single inventor. There must be an entire lineage of similar devices. That we have only a single example is simply a hint that there was much more to their technology than we're currently aware of. It's also an indication of how easy it is for a cultural calamity to erase collective memories of high tech; a warning for our times if nothing is. Not to mention that the correct ideas are not necessarily those which survive such a calamity. After all, when the Roman Empire fell, Medieval Europe inherited the Ptolemaic model. Of course, by then Ptolemy was writing (ca. 150) he probably had to work without the benefit of the bulk of the Royal Library at Alexandria so he may have been left to his own devices when considering a model of planetary motion.
And the brethren went away edified.
I haven't heard whether the antikythera actually worked to accurately show the sky, but I expect that further tests will show that it did.
The Pyramids aren't "incorrectly placed" to represent the stars of "Orion". Their positions are different from Orion's exact shape today, but are exactly correct for their slightly different positions 13.5Ky ago - and again about 12Ky in the future. Discovering that correspondence allowed the discoverers to find 2 previously undocumented pyramids buried nearby, corresponding to other stars in the constellation. FWIW, the "Greek" who knew the Earth was round, even calculating its circumference within 1% accuracy, was Eratosthenes, actually an "Egyptian" (or neighboring "Libyan").
Angkor Wat is sync'ed to "Draco", also 13.5Ky ago. Other global monuments reflect other constellations, including all kinds of Greek monuments.
Stonehenge wasn't merely a sundial, but rather a calibration to various celestial events throughout the year and the centuries.
These devices were used to navigate around a global civilization that shared a celestial framework. Not just markers, but also a consistent framework of stories of supernatural characters that ensured their perpetuation across the world and through time. Because that knowledge was accepted on faith by most, just like most people accept GPS, watches and Web reservation systems on faith today, they're "religious" objects. I hope our exposure to more ancient versions will help us examine our own mystification of current practices at least as much as it demystifies ancient practice.
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make install -not war
It's full of stars!
Sorry, had to.
I saw this on the Wikipedia entry:
"It also adds support to the idea that there was an ancient Greek tradition of complex mechanical technology which was later transmitted to the Arab world, where similar but simpler devices were built during the medieval period. Of course, they had to copy it. Jawas would never come up with such a white device on their own."
I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and I refreshed, and it dissapeared. But I found it again in the edits and that blew me away.
Shame on the racist troll asshole that put that up. (NB: it wasn't me!)
At Fermilab, no data gets released until the entire experimental collaboration (500-700 people in the case of CDF and D0) has approved, or "blessed" it. Why is this? One is scientific credibility. You don't get to publish a paper and then send out bugfix updates. Once something is published, it is published for all time (well, until civilisation collapses at least). You can retract it by publishing a retraction, but that is looked upon as evidence of a rather bad failure. The second reason is that since it is a US national laboratory, the government owns the data. The department of energy, as I understand it, requires this blessing process before any analysis of their data is published.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
Labelling me overrated before anyone else had rated me and
labelling me redundant when I was the first comment.
I call Shenangians!
Legend, rather than fact. The article says:
2634 BC According to Legend, Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor designs the South Pointing Chariot. It is built for him by the craftsman Fang Bo.
I'll point out that the Yellow Emperor is also credited in Chinese lgeend with inventing the cart, the boat, and the calendar. He's a culture-hero and myth, not history to be cited. The Duke of Chou is similiarly legendified.
Note that the 'reinvention' of it (most likely, the actual invention) dates well after the Antikythera mechanism. And even then, there don't appear to be any surviving plans or carts, and at least one claim that it was an actual person in the cart, not a mechanism.
Forgot to mention... how many of Edison's inventions were really his own, and how many (should have) actually belonged to some lab worker/assistant in his labs?
Ignore this signature. By order.
Xenophon - sounds strange to me. No, really.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
REG: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
XERXES: Brought peace.
REG: Oh. Peace? Shut up!
(If you don't know what that's from, well, hand in your geek card on the way out.)
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