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2,100-Year-Old Antikythera Device Recreated In Working Form
coondoggie writes "A
new working model of the mysterious 2,100-year-old astronomical calculator, dubbed the Antikythera Device, has been unveiled, incorporating the most recent discoveries announced two years ago by an international team of researchers. The new model was demonstrated by its creator, former museum curator Michael Wright, who had created an earlier model based on decades of study."
I keep asking my boss for a new machine, but apparently the quad-core boxes are reserved for managers with important work to do like using Powerpoint and surfing for softcore pornography.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I'm prokythera, you insensitive clod.
Surprised with all the negativity. Studying cryptic machines that change the way we view technology's historical progression and after years of work crafting a working replica hardly seems worthy of scorn.
and so starts the story of Sylar, the villain watchmaker.
Thank goodness we're prepared for when the sinister Kythera device is unearthed.
Very cool.
It's not that the mechanism is amazing by modern standards that is interesting. It's not not even that the mechanism must have been amazing by the standards of the time when it was manufatured. It's that the mechanism is amazing by the standards of at least 1000 years after it was apparently manufactured. Historians find stuff like that interesting; sorry you're not impressed.
There's a good chance that it was a custom job made for Hipparchus, either for his lab or to impress the king.
"Hi, this is Hipparchus. I placed a custom order for an Antikythera about 8 months ago."
"Oh, we shipped that out. It looks like there was a problem with the delivery... Ah, here we go. The boat sank."
"What? I've got to present that next week!"
"I'm sorry, did you buy shipping insurance? It doesn't show here on the invoice that you paid for insurance."
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
It looks like Digg has invaded slashdot. Anyways, The fact that 2 millennia ago some were able to make a calculator to predict eclipses is astounding, taking into consideration the religious beliefs and the gullibility of the masses on those times.
It's not going to be long before this is THE thing to have on a desk or shelf.
I want to be the first in line to purchase one.
They had to wait for the Antikytheran 2099 year copyright to expire.
The new model was demonstrated by its creator
Wow, a 2,100 guy demonstrating it? I'd pay to see that!
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
You do realize that technology existed prior to computers, do you not? How the heck is this not technology?
Brett
I keep asking my boss for a new machine
That's crazy talk. If you keep that up you'll soon be in charge of legacy systems. No, this is not a troll!
Can it run linux?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these
Can it run vista?
Less space that a (real live) nomad -- lame.
Because you have a small penis.
Kythera was the name of the island it was found near, thus anti-kythera means it was found off the coast of the island.
It's what we call it, we have no idea what they would have called it.
I'd love to get one of these for my shelf or desk somewhere. I wonder if someone would make these and sell them on ThinkGeek.com? Another good question might be whether or not someone has modelled the device in OpenGL? It would make a really cool screensaver!
Actually, worse. You get NetworkWorld... AGAIN.
NetworkWorld's sock puppets are working overtime for Christmas. This is at least the 3rd story in 24 hours or so to make slashdot. Sad, desperate, or what? Mind you, if you've read any of their site you'll understand why they need to spam to get readers.
This story was on the BBC months ago by the way.
Want
Somebody... Please translate all these 'not amazing by that is interesting' phrases... they're alien to me! O_o
How did someone miss that opportunity? :-(
--- Band: Joey Ultra
The Greeks and Romans had some clever inventions. The sad part is that all the efforts they did at math and engineering came to a stop, and most of it got lost during the Middle Ages. If you travel through southern Europe, you'll see several engineering works, like the Pont du Gard, Coliseum, Arles amphitheatre, etc, which had no equal a thousand years after they were built.
It's a bit frightening that any intellectual progress was stopped for a thousand years, and I wonder could it happen again?
There was an article a few months ago about this that stated that the mechanism was used to calculate Olympiads.
That was the first interpretation of the mechanism. Now the model shows that it was much more than that as it can predict eclipses and planetary positions.
As for it not being a 'computer' I disagree. There are two forms of computers, analog and digital. An analog computer is basically a measuring device like a ruler or slide rule, thermometer and so on.
The mechanism is definitely an analog computer.
The Greeks were very good at building gadgets and even extremely large hydro-mechanical machines. Most of these constructions were used in temples to simulate thunder, automatic opening and closing doors, automated movement of objects (think Temple of Doom).
Their skill was renown in the ancient world and the mechanism is a tribute to their ingenuity.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
This page is kind of fun, showing HP's technology where they light the mechanism from lots of angles and photograph them. (Needs Java).
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
No, that gullibility part only came into effect some 500 years later, when someone convinced people that a woman could remain a virgin after giving birth to a child. This belief was formally adopted into Christian doctrine in the year 431 AD, which more or less marks the start of a thousand years when all intellectual progress in Europe stood still.
I don't think the analog/digital distinction is what makes this feel like a complex toy rather than a computer, but rather it is the lack of Turing completeness, the fact that it is only capable of a specific limited instruction set.
Some (admittedly vague) requirements for something to be a computer are allowing variable inputs that produce variable outputs based on a programmable function. If there were only one function it would be a (primitive) calculator. This is not even a calculator. It's a clock. As one would expect there is natural evolution here from less complex to more complex.
As an aside I'm not sure why everyone wants to find examples of our ancestors having super advanced technology that was lost in the mists of time. Obviously it does happen (e.g. steam power, firearms in Japan, etc), but it's the exception not the norm. I guess it's just more sexy and attention grabbing to have some kind of mystery around it.
Lame.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_computer *sigh*
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
Check out the article for the video of the model in operation. It's amazing to watch - the indicator for the Sun, Moon and planets move forwards and backwards to accurately replicate their movement, while a little ball turns to shows the phase of the Moon.
It's a fascinating device. I've got Decoding the Heavens on order from Amazon in the UK, and can't wait to get it.
For those of you who do not get this, Bromley was Wrights' collaborator. He died in 2002 of Hodgkin's disease. RIP.
In 2000 years, our space faring decedents may say the same thing about space travel. "They put this space capsule on the moon and these robots on mars, it's too bad that all that intellectual progress was reversed in the 1000 years to follow".
But the technology we have today isn't really capable of space travel (look how expensive and impractical it is). These Greek and Roman inventions are the same. You can't really use that steam engine to do any work, and it is impractical to build those kind of structures with your hands or with animal power.
Today's steam engines, and internal combustion engines, on the other hand, can really make building those kind of structures possible on a large scale.
I woulda modded you funny. Somebody had to do it might as wella been you!
Directly and indirectly, religon has been responsible for more people dying than any other cause EVER.
It was true 5000 years ago. And it's still true today.
So no. We can't get off our anti-religon kick until the problem is solved. If only we could kill all the religous nuts. But then we're part of the problem too.
Unfortunately, enough people are gullible enough to believe you that I feel compelled to respond...
So really quick, during those thousand years when "all intellectual progress in Europe stood still..."
Prior to the Catholic Church establishing the university system, the only way to become educated was to hire a private tutor. Without it, the common man had no possible means of becoming educated without becoming nobility. Interestingly enough, it was the university system which laid the foundation for the Renaissance.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Seems strange that the narrator sounds like the Scottish T-1001 from the Sarah Connor Chronicles. http://www.fox.com/terminator/bios/#bio:catherine
'nuff said.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
I think it's pretty amazing by modern standards. If you watch the video, there's a "clock hand" for every visible planet. That wouldn't be so impressive if it were heleocentric... just a bunch of simple gears. But it's geocentric, which means that depending on the relative position to the earth, sometimes they're going forward and sometimes backwards, and sometimes standing still. And the position of the moon is not based on a circular orbit, but implements Hipparchus's complex epicycle algorithm for the lunar cycle. If there are more impressive modern mechanical designs, I don't know what they are.
I found a new musical artist through this article. I went to the "popular culture" section of the wiki, and then found This Binary Universe, by BT. The album features a track called "The Antikythera Mechanism". It's good, calming electronica. d-.-b
I mean awesome in the original meaning of the word, not the current overused teen lingo nonsense. The animated 3D X-rays of the ancient device that enabled the reconstruction are particularly geekworthy. http://www.nature.com/nature/videoarchive/antikythera/index.html
I wonder when it will be available in fuschia...
And you would know *how*?
It's easy to guess. Knowing is so much more difficult.
ps- I come here to find what I wouldn't ordinarily find. Certainly not regurgitation of the sites any /.'r should be visiting regularly, and certainly not lame junior-high attempts at put-downs. Try insulting my coding skilz, k? Oh crap, that's right, I don't have any.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I still have an original Antikythera 01 on my desk here at work.
I know it's about two thousand and one hundred years too late to say this to you but....
I for one welcome our new gear crunching overlord!
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
yea, but then you could call an opamp a computer.
If we are talking computers in the modern sense then the Antikythera device is really a calculator.
So... is this like, "reinventing the wheel?" What about copyright, has it expired or do they owe a royalty? Sorry, the Kraken made me say it.
what Linux does it run?
Example: If you take the 17th December 2008 and want to know the position of the moon relative to Mars in 2012, it computes the answer. A computer is a calculator, and so is this device.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
There, fixed that for you. Recall that during the Great Purges, Stalin adhered to his harshest treatment toward religion.
Careful, now. It isn't much of a stretch to suggest that the belief religion is a cancer also requires that it be purged from society. The road to murderous intent goes both ways.
That, and I'd have a hard time believing you'd classify all religions as motivating people toward mass-murder. Even Buddhism?
Nazis were many things, but I think this is stepping into conspiratorial ground.
I sincerely hope you're simply trolling and don't believe a lick of this.
He who has no
The death of the roman empire was certain before it was born. The whole empire survived on the labor of others. But by looting those other people, they were slowly destroying the source of their livelihood. They starved people to build the colosseum and their aquanauts and to supply their grand army. It was continued growth that sustained them, but once they had expanded as far as they could, the rot set in. It was only a matter of time before the barbarian hordes invaded, but Rome was long gone by that time.
This is not unlike our financial market which is basically a ponzi scheme dependent on continued growth to guarantee returns and sustain many people's needlessly lavish lifestyles. Of course it will come crashing down! Do you really think it can grow forever? There are only so many people and so many resources on the earth, and we have nowhere else to go.
Well, the actual opposite is Kythera, you insesitive clod... learn ur geography first and then get off my lawn!
Roses are red, violets are blue, most poems rhyme, but this one doesn't...
"This is probably the best time for Science in the history of Humanity."
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with you. (In spite of my comment above) :-)
I was just in a frustrated, pessimistic mood due to a discussion with several cow-orkers earlier. Sorry about that, and the following discourse.
*disclaimer*
I haven't completely regained a harmonious and balanced mood yet, but it is steadily getting there!
Seems easier now days to lose sight of the beauty and goodness of the forest due to so many gnarly, fugly, and sinister trees growing in it's midst.
Back on topic though...I'm kind of sad that my age will most likely prevent me from seeing/experiencing some of the cool discoveries and tech that will come to be in 50-100 years from now***, yet I am also grateful to have seen/experienced what I have lived through.
I'm a NASA brat, and enjoyed playing in the old Mercury and Gemini capsules outside of my dad's building when I was a kid. (Goddard Spaceflight Center, in Greenbelt, MD.)
I watched Neil Armstrong step down on the moon in 1969, and was awed and amazed!
Got a joyride from a USMC fighter pilot in an F-4C Phantom (he was a combat 'ace' with 16 air to air victories against Mig's in Vietnam) when I was in Jr. High- then my younger brother hooked me up with a ride in an F-15 Eagle when I was in my early 30's. :-)
The F-4 ride thrilled me, and I thought that nothing could top that...until the F-15 ride! Holy Shit My Pants, Batman! Wow! I came embarrassingly close to having to use the barf-bag the pilot handed me (with a VERY wicked smile on his face).
Thanks, bro! (He told the pilot that I could not be scared, and would laugh at anything the pilot tried! Talk about a challenge/dare to a fighter jock!- I was unaware of this conversation until several days later)
It took the ground crew 2 days, several prybars, a crane, and 2 sticks of TNT to get me seperated from the seat- apparently my arsehole clenched so forcefully, the suction created sucked 3/4's of the seat up my posterior.
How those guys do that on a regular basis bemuses me, and is comforting at the same time.
I've watched the birth of AARPANET, the World Wide Web and the Information SuperHighway, and then the Internet we love and sometimes hate today.
Stem cells, cloning, genetic engineering, modern medicine, robotic assembly lines, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
BTW, your reply raised 'scientist replying' flags for me: "All in all, we're not."
If you are one (a scientist), then: I salute you! And carry on...you have my respect and admiration.
If you are not one, or only 'play one on T.V.', then you have raised a valid point, and I appreciate the 'slap to the face/get a hold of yourself!' effect your reply had on me.
At any rate, thanks for the reply- it was appreciated, and helped 'center' me, but more importantly, you focused on the truly wonderful stuff happening now, and stuff 'just around the corner'***!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
2100 years old? thats like, about half the age of the universe!
I'm very glad to read the date like 65 B.C. :-) (why not indicate the month, day and hour?). Is it the date of a mechanism creation? o destruction? Somebody can say me the date of the microchip on my hand now? sure can't...
So the dates like 65 B.C. are FALSE by definition. And I doesn't speak that this mechanism shows the state of knowledge of a Later Middle Age era and more probably that it IS a product of a XV century (A.D.)... not bad! ;-)
If you want original and unique stories you've come to the wrong place. Slashdot has always been a linkfarm meaning all stories are, by definition, not unique. The rise in similar sites makes it inevitable that the stories linked to here are available on dozens of other sites across the web. Sure, Slashdot could be a little more particular about which sources they use and some better editorialising could allow them to provide a more comprehensive and accurate story instead of the all-to-common-now tabloidesque story that turns out to be largely untrue. But, if you want original stories and research then you're going to be a waiting a long time - Slashdot doesn't have writers or journalists, it has editors and, given the recent push for cash-in crap like Idle I don't think the Corporate Overlords will be springing for some new staff anytime soon.
Actually, my whine is that I, like any /.'rs, generally do read these other sites. It's repetitive.
And I get the problem of finding, if not unique, at least undiscovered stories. There's so much going on in the blogosphere that not many stories are real 'finds'.
Yeah. /. isn't trading in the unique and unusual any more. The Internet ain't like it used to be.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Everyone knows that these comples devices will destroy the universe the first time you turn it on! It's not so bad the second time you do it though.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Their contribution came in SPITE of them being Christian. It was not because they were Christian that they came to their theory from the fact they observed. Or are you telling us that if they were, say Buddhist, observing the same data would have led them NOT to come to the same conclusion ? OTOH a good case can be made that Christianity hierarchy as a whole , like any other religion, prefer status quo and dogma, to discovery research, the later being frowned upon as from them arise heresy. Christian hierarchy did not push for research, it was at most tolerated (that is unless you were researching the number of pope until the apocalypse).
Also AFAIR The monastery used the previous work or scroll as raw material for religious text. A case can certainly be made that any preservation was accidental.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
You could also credit Christianity with the paving the way for science with the idea of a lawful universe - particularly given the number of devout Christians who contributed to science: Mendel, Newton, etc.
Well, I think you got the facts backwards : they where not scientist *because* they were christians.
They where scientist who happened to be christians too, because, statistically, at that time period in Europe, if you picked up some random person, chance would be high to find a christian.
Those Scientist just happen to follow what the most predominant religion was around.
Just as before them, you had lots of muslim scientist during the Golden Age of Islam, and before that you got greek scientist who followed their local customs, and even before, Assyro-Babylonian scientist following the then prevalent religion.
And in a land far away from there you got Chinese scientist who followed the local philosophies. And Mayan scientist working on astronomy and astrology while praying at exotic (for us) gods chimera made out of several bits of animal.
In an exaggerated way : Probably when the first caveman "discovered" fire he wasn't praying a Christian god at all - more like some fertility/nature goddess. But still, you can't argue that his "discovery" didn't play a capital role in Humanity's history.
So, no sorry to disappoint you, but the fact that some of the recent scientists happen to be Christians doesn't show anything more than they were rather un-imaginative when peeking a religion.
(Which is kind of normal : they where at the bleeding edge of science. not religion. had they been at the bleeding edge of religion, they would probably have been brilliant philosophers - just not scientists).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
A computer is a calculator but that doesn't mean a calculator has to be a computer. This is like saying all salmon (computers) are fish (calculators). This does not automatically imply all fish are salmon.
Of course I'm just talking about a flaw in your logical construct. That flaw does not mean the Antikythera device cannot be a computer. All salmon are fish but not all fish are salmon. If I identify something as a fish I have not ruled out that it could be a salmon. I simply have not logically identified it as a salmon by showing that it is a fish.
Now, if you take the position that all calculators are computers then the logical construct that the Antikythera device must be a computer does hold up, but someone might argue that you are making a false syllogism (untrue premise) at that point.
Technology should never be measured by cost. Cost is a man-made device, it's no different then saying "we couldn't figure out how to make a spaceship, because the cost of food was to great". Technology betters mankind in some way, practical or not.
That's true, but I'm not talking about just the US. I'm referring to the US, Western European nations, Japan and other countries which have a central banking system similar to our own.
Also, I don't think a crash is inevitable. I think that as long as we exercise restraint, everything will be okay. People are too detached from the value of their money, they don't know how much labor goes into the things they buy. If they did, they would realize how wasteful they are being, and they would probably stop.
Another problem is lending. Right now most people will take out mortgages to buy a house which will take them 20 to 30 years to pay off. This is despite the fact that it only costs around $50,000 to build a fairly nice house. Because the land resources are scarce, the prices of houses are elevated. But when you throw lending into the picture, you dramatically increase the level to which prices may rise. Especially when people decide that they can sell their house when they buy the next and make a profit. This is obviously a ponzi scheme (look where the money comes from). The entire excess value of the house is not real. Moreover, we have a society of people who have to work, or else they will lose their homes. If we all saved to buy our homes, the prices would be much lower.
Did you notice how the government was willing to spend 700 billion dollars buying bad mortgage securities, but refused to spend $25 billion on auto manufactures. That's because they know that the 700 is fake, there to make us feel better, But the 25 is real and we can't afford it.
We'd do better just to get rid of the whole system. People have become too detached from reality, and we can't make rational decisions anymore.
You're right. My father is a man, your father is a man. Therefore my father is your father and thus we're brothers. I think that's an ancient Greek logical puzzle.
All the comments about Turing etc apply to the digital branch of computing.
Is a clock intelligent? After all it with human perception accurately calculates time. It is classed as an analog computer.
A digital computer is programmable so it can be a clock, or a ruler or an Antikythera device. Go back 75 years and those old mainframes only did one job at a time. Ballistic calculations, cryptography, then later payroll, bank investments forecasts etc. I don't see the distinction between the Abacus (analog) and a calculator (digital) except for the modus operandi.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
All right, enough of these silly antiks.
I take it you hail from the planet KDE?
Dr Superlove 300ml. I use my powers for awesome
named Charlie, AFAICR
if we give up on books for Kindles
and rely upon ASPs