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Mystery of Ancient Calculator Finally Cracked
jcaruso writes, "It's been more than 100 years since the discovery of the 2,000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism, but researchers are only now figuring out how it works." From the article:
"Since its discovery in 1902, the Antikythera Mechanism — with its intricate and baffling system of about 30 geared wheels — has been an enigma... During the last 50 years, researchers have identified various astronomical and calendar functions, including gears that mimic the movement of the sun and moon. But it has taken some of the most advanced technology of the 21st century to decipher during the past year the most advanced technology of the 1st century B.C."
Did it run Linux?
liqbase
But it has taken some of the most advanced technology of the 21st century to decipher during the past year the most advanced technology of the 1st century B.C."Maybe in 2000 years we'll have the technology to decode that sentence!
Don't throw out the instructions; archaeologists from the 40th century might need them.
On the serious side, though... How much of our stuff will be unusable only 200 years from now?
Absolutely nothing new in this article, except that the latest team are going to be releasing their findings soon. Basically, it's a page filler, some entertainment, not news at all.
Really, we need a new word, for news which isn't functional information, but just amusing/entertaining.
I wish they'd bloody well get round to publishing the full translation of the text, though!
Remember folks, always document your calculators
They did.
From the article:
'... X-rays exposed writing on surfaces mashed together in the Mechanism, and never before seen... He declines to be specific about what the writing says. "But it was basically an instruction manual on using the mechanism, and what its purpose was," he says.'
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Here be Dragons
Actually this story is a little old, people have had the Antikythera device scoped out for a couple of years now. It's a sort of geared astrolabe using an epicyclic model (an astronomical paradigm adopted in Ptolomy's ptime) and the parts inside the corroded find were derived by some good ol'fashioned NMI scanning.
An astrolabe is basically a clock -- an analogue computer that correlates time, star position and latitude. Look 'em up -- they're beautiful instruments and very logically constructed. Each point indicates a star, the off-centre circles (al'mucanthers) are the projections of the celestial latitudes from the polar axis (think of a bunch of hoops on one spindle of a Tower of Hanoi model, then crank the spindle off the perpendicular by a few degrees, to give you an idea of the projection. Light source on top, your shadow rings are the al'mucanthers). Move the star pointer to one of those circles, then read the index off the rim of the device (the Mater). Because of their simplicity and elegance (the mathematical model, not the construction!) they were used up until Columbus' time. If the Antikythera device had been a better predictor, we might well have seen more of them. And a lot more gears. The only thing we still use from the development of the astrolabe today is the flat head screw, seen on one model in 1565.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
They should have given it to SG1. Dr. Jackson would have figured it out in no time, and they would have used to save the Earth from a far more technologically advanced enemy.
heh.. lots of nice pics and write-up here
But it has taken some of the most advanced technology of the 21st century to decipher during the past year the most advanced technology of the 1st century B.C.
To pull out the old quote, "It is twice as difficult to debug a program as to write it. Therefore, if you put all of your creativity and effort into writing the program, you are not smart enough to debug it."
Without any information even about what it's supposed to do, beyond being a series of gears, without knowing if it's even a fragment of a larger whole - or even knowing if it actually worked for the intended process (or was the ancient equivalent of a buggy program), that makes for quite a challenge.
I'm guessing, in the future, a massively advanced civilization that came across the ones and zeroes of Internet Explorer, without the O.S., without info about HTTP, without Windows or a computer based off that comical silicon technology they've only found fragments of, they wouldn't be able to figure it out either.
Remember folks, always read the article.
Haida Manga
Because it's kind of hard to read, even if you know Greek. Quite a lot of work needs to be done to get the text transcribed fully, even if parts of it are easy to read. Have you looked at the third image in the slide show? Could you make an accurate transcription of the text shown?
FWIW, I can read Greek, but all I can make out is some references to a "square showing a given" something, some numbers, and something about moving some bits of the mechanism but not others. The third line's got some words in it but I can't fit them together without context.
Pictures and Images to a working unit can be found here
It's perfectly easy to understand. There are two possibilities.
... as the wheel ... place the ... will appear at ... Made in Mexico")
1. There's writing on it, but it can't be read with certainty. Instead of making guesses to its contents, the researchers are leaving their speculation to its purpose, which can be more easily deduced. This can be because of:
1a. They actually can't read enough of it to gather the content of the message. (i.e. "Turn the
1b. They have a translation of some sort, but aren't sure that it is correct, and are waiting for confirmation.
2. The researchers made the annoucement subject to a non-disclosure agreement. These agreements are fairly common when making announcements prior to the publication of an academic article. You can make you're annoucement of your findings, but can give specifics about your findings until the article has been published. Just wait until the article is published, and then read the translation yourself.
BESURETODRINKYOUROVALTINE
Netcraft confirms it... Antikythera Mechanisms are dying!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Basically, they've found the EULA. They're worried the BSA will sue them under the PMCA (Pre-Millenium Copyright Act)...
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?