Workings of Ancient Calculating Device Deciphered

palegray.net writes "Scientists have discovered new meaning behind the functions of the Antikythera Mechanism, which has been referred to as the oldest known analog computing device. In addition to providing a means to calculate the dates for solar eclipses, the device apparently tracked the four-year cycles of the Olympiad. From the New York Times article: 'Only now, applying high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography, have experts been able to decipher inscriptions and reconstruct functions of the bronze gears on the mechanism. The latest research has revealed details of dials on the instrument's back side, including the names of all 12 months of an ancient calendar.'"

Comments

Where would we be today?

[BobTheConvict]

I've always marveled at the "how did they do that" nature of such discoveries and honestly makes me realize an incredible loss of knowledge and skill occurred somewhere in the past (Dark Ages perhaps) that set us back thousands of years.

Re:Where would we be today?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe a big "thank you" is in order for organized religion.

Re:Where would we be today?

[Abreu]

I believe a big "thank you" is in order for organized religion.

Actually, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire had more to do with it.

The Church, if anything, managed to save some of the knowledge that would otherwise would have been lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_ages

Re:Where would we be today?

[Apathist]

The Church, if anything, managed to save some of the knowledge that would otherwise would have been lost.

Sure, if by "save" you mean "appropriate for exclusive use".

Yes, the fall of the Roman Empire immediately preceded the Dark Ages. However, problem of the Dark Ages was not so much that there was no central empire to act as a beacon of light, but more that education and knowledge was available only to the clergy (and the wealthy, via the clergy). It is very telling that the Renaissance only began with the translation of the Bible into a common tongue, instead of being exclusively in Latin - that only priests could read.

Re:Where would we be today?

[mdmkolbe]

Good, bad or ugly, it's still a fact that more knowledge was preserved with the Church than would have been without. The monks may have shown bias in which texts they copied, but it's not like anyone else was copying or distributing other works on as large a scale.

Re:Where would we be today?

[mdmkolbe]

I believe a big "thank you" is in order for organized religion.

I believe you meant this sarcastically, but it shouldn't be so. The Church did both a lot of good things and a lot of bad things, just like any other organization that has been around for any period of time.

In this case though, the Church mitigated the effects of the fragmentation that occurred after the fall of the Roman Empire simply by being a Pan-European organization that survived the fall. The very act of it continuing to function would have encouraged more contact between the fragments than would have happened otherwise.

Re:Where would we be today?

[DerekLyons]

Actually, the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire had more to do with it.

The cause of that fall is still under debate, but the least that can be said is that it was closely correlated to the rise of the Roman Church.

You can say it, sure. You can also say "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog".

OK, correlation is not causation, but there is no causation without correlation, causation hasn't been disproved either.

Translation: "I want to make it sound like I'm educated and unbiased without actually being either, especially the latter. Learning is hard."

Re:Where would we be today?

[ktappe]

It sounds like you are accusing the Church of suppressing education and civilization.

He may not be, but I am. If you do not think the Church has suppressed education, then you need to go have a long look at texts describing the Inquisition. One single example is how the Church dictated the wholesale burning of every scrap of paper documenting the Mayan civilization because it was declared heresy. (Ref: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/maya). Another very famous example is the Church excommunication of Galileo for daring to suggest the earth orbits the sun. And of course there's the modern-day refusal to accept natural selection as a concept they'll tolerate being taught in schools. Many, many other examples are out there for the learning if you care to look.

Are you saying the collaspe of education and civilization had nothing to do with that whole burning and pillaging thing from the pagan barbarian hordes such as the Goths and Vandals?

They were largely disorganized. The Church is far and away the longest lasting, best-funded, globally-organized suppressor of education that has ever existed. No other example even comes close.

Re:Where would we be today?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do not think the Church has suppressed education, then you need to go have a long look at texts describing the Inquisition. One single example is how the Church dictated the wholesale burning of every scrap of paper documenting the Mayan civilization because it was declared heresy. (Ref: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/maya).

That was a policy decision by one dude, not "the Church". In his defense, he was trying to stamp out an ongoing religious practice of ritual human sacrifice. Yes, the local population was cutting the hearts out of people -- mostly children and teenagers -- to appease the gods. Book-burning or not, I'm rather more sympathetic to the Christian religion than the Mayan.

Anyway, it's not clear that the Mayan civilization had any technical learning to teach the Spanish. These were almost certainly just instruction manuals for the right way to tear peoples' insides out. The Mayan civilization had been in decline for hundreds of years at this point. And Spain already had acquired a quite decent number system (including zero) from India, via the Arabs, along with a lot of other neat stuff.

Another very famous example is the Church excommunication of Galileo for daring to suggest the earth orbits the sun.

Galileo was never excommunicated for that reason nor for any other. His punishment (house arrest) was a bit closer to the Comfy Chair than that. But yes, condemning his writings was a bad move.

And of course there's the modern-day refusal to accept natural selection as a concept they'll tolerate being taught in schools.

This is absolutely not an action of "the Church" but of a fairly small number of American conservative evangelicals. The people who tell you that the teaching of evolution is demonic are the same sort of people who will tell you that Rome is "Babylon the Great", the Pope is the anti-Christ, his satanic organization is the Great Harlot, etc.

Many, many other examples are out there for the learning if you care to look.

If there are, why do people always drag out the same example of Galileo?

They were largely disorganized. The Church is far and away the longest lasting, best-funded, globally-organized suppressor of education that has ever existed. No other example even comes close.

I'm guessing you don't get MTV.

Re:Where would we be today?

[laddiebuck]

Oh, and who do you think preserved most of the pre-Dark Ages knowledge for us in the first place? Who copied and preserved the Greek philosophical texts? That's right, the Church. Monks in monasteries. The Church has played a very important role in education.

Natural selection is a particularly bad example, as the Catholic and Anglican churches (which were the only active ones in the times you are speaking of) both endorse evolution by natural selection. Just some fundamentalist American churches don't.

Re:Where would we be today?

[mdmkolbe]

I stand by the point that the church certainly did not go to pains to educate the people.

Anyone who could afford the time to be educated, was educated. Cathedral and monastery schools dotted the landscape and you didn't have to become a monk or priest to join these schools.

Unfortunately most peasants couldn't afford the time to get educated. They were too busy growing crops and living like peasants. That isn't the Church's fault. That's the result of the inefficient food production system at the time. It would be dishonest to ascribe sinister motives to this simple fact of life.

On the other hand, those that could afford the time, would usually prefer to become doctors, lawyers or priests after they were educated instead of going back to their peasant lives. In other words, there were no educated peasants because once a peasant was educated, he was no longer a peasant.

Re:Where would we be today?

[Apathist]

Oh, and who do you think preserved most of the pre-Dark Ages knowledge for us in the first place? Who copied and preserved the Greek philosophical texts? That's right, the Church. Monks in monasteries. The Church has played a very important role in education.

Oh please. The church has played a very important role in the education of things they believe in. How many of those documents that were studiously preserved were considered heretical? Or even just pagan? Most likely zero. And what happened to such deeply offensive documents? Discarded, destroyed, with a vengeance, perhaps?

Why this dichotomy of perservation principles? Because they weren't interested in history, or even in education itself - they were interested in power. Power via access to knowledge. It's a common theme today; knowledge is power - and the church back then knew it too.

They weren't interested in preserving. They were interested in controlling.

Re:Where would we be today?

[Stooshie]

... Modern science was started by the Catholic church ...

True, to an extent, until the results of their scientific endeavours started conflicting with "biblical truth"

good news is...

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

now we, computer geeks, can claim ancient greek heritage.

how cool is that, hmmm ?

Re:Yeah but...

[Abreu]

I'm imagining Beowulf imagining a Beowulf cluster of these things.

Nah, if anything, I can imagine Beowulf ripping out one of its clock hands and throwing it to the sea

Re:Why calculate timing of the Olympiad?

[Tofino]

The wikipedia article indicates that people think the device was designed with compactness in mind. So why would you add the feature of calculating when 4 years had passed? It's already keeping track of the months, so couldn't you just count them as they went past? Did I miss something?

You've clearly never developed software for salespeople.

Re:Computer Model Proves GeoCentrism

[Red Flayer]

Emphasis mine:

So my point here is that "scientific" computer models should be greeted with skepticism, even when they accurately predict. They should be absolutely scorned when they fail to accurately predict. There are a whole bunch of "scientists" out there running computer similations that are far less predictive than this device that is likey based on a geocentric theory of the universe.

ALL models should be greeted with skepticism. Hell, all THEORIES and all HYPOTHESES should be greeted with skepticism.

That is the very foundation of successful application of the scientific method.

There's a big problem with what you're saying, however... you say that a model that does not accurately predict should be scorned. That is false. Models are often revised to account for inaccurate predictions. As one famous scientist explained, it is not the Eureka! moments that drive true discovery, it is the "That's funny..." moments. In other words, the failure of a model to accuately predict will often lead to greater understanding of what is being modeled. Do you think that the General Theory of Relativity should be scorned, even though, as a modeal, it fails to accurately predict the existence of dark energy and dark matter?

So, to sum up -- yes, skepticism is important in all science. But a model that does not predict accurately may still have value to the scientific community... at the very least, it can be the starting point for a revised model that does accurately predict.

Re:Computer Model Proves GeoCentrism

[Ambitwistor]

So, does this mean that a geocentric universe was "proven" by science in the 1st century BC?

It means that geocentrism is a reasonably good theory in terms of predictive skill, although not as good as the theories of orbital mechanics which came after (heliocentrism, Keplerian ellipses, Newtonian gravity, Einsteinian gravity, ...)

Our best global warming climate models are extemely *inaccurate* compared to this relatively accurate device.

So?

Yet we accept the (modern) inaccurate models on faith

No, we don't. You ever open up the IPCC report and see the big error bars? Everyone knows that modern climate models come with substantial uncertainty. All models have uncertainty, some more and some less. The point with climate models is that, even with large error bars, you can still exclude hypotheses such as "the warming is mostly natural" or "the warming in 2100 will be less than 1 degree under business-as-usual emissions scenarios".

and reject the (ancient) accurate model that this device "proves"

Regardless of how accurate ancient models are, modern models are more accurate still, which is why we reject them in favor of newer models. This is the same as why we reject older climate models (e.g., simple energy balance models) in favor of modern general circulation models. No, they're not as accurate as even old theories of orbital mechanics; orbits are simple and predictable. That doesn't mean that they're not useful, or not scientific, or have no predictive skill.

There are a whole bunch of "scientists" out there running computer similations that are far less predictive than this device that is likey based on a geocentric theory of the universe.

Again, so?

And what's with the scare quotes around scientists? Are you going to claim that climate scientists aren't real scientists?

Re:Computer Model Proves GeoCentrism

[Mahjub Sa'aden]

That statement is itself in effect a theory, invalidating its own conclusion.

Re:To be entirely fair...

[Starcub]

But essentially what sealed the fate of Europe and caused wide-spread rejection of the present and the Church in favour of rediscovering the ancient science and ways, were the plague outbursts. It proved repeatedly that the Church and faith can do nothing to prevent it, and present day alchemists can't do jack shit either.

Always it's science vs. religion; I bet bet you got this from a textbook you read as part of some secular course curriculum, just like I did. Everyone with half a brain can see the same rediculous divisions being fabricated by the God haters of today between science and religion (evolution vs. creationism being a prime example). Well guess what, the university system we know of today has it's roots in the Catholic Church, particularly in a few monastic orders like the Jesuits who, during the dark ages, studied and preserved what bits of ancient knowledge they had access to in their own collections.

What caused widespread rejection of the church were the abuses that occurred via troublemakers from within. In addition, the invention of the printing press and widespread dissemination of the Bible (which the Church actually encouraged) allowed people to edit and misinterpret as they wished. They attributed to the Faith the abilility to answer questions it was never meant to answer, and they do whatever they think they can get away with to hide the vastly more important message that it was intended to be. So the baby is thrown out with the bathwater.

They continue doing the same thing today, secretly. But these are the activities of the eternal enemies of the church, not the Church proper. And these types of activities are most practiced by secular rulers, and alway have been. I'm willing to bet that devices like the one in this article have been handed down in secret 'labs' through countless generations of corrupted power mongerers. A thousand years from now, we will be reading about ingenious quantum tech devices or some such that were developed in secret labs by contemporary worldly leaders that were also secretly used to create 'supernatural' phenomenon to tip the scales of power in their own favor just as this device probably was by the 'kings of the east' that had it.