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2,100-Year-Old Antikythera Device Recreated In Working Form

Posted by timothy on from the probably-nothing-more-than-an-electrical-meter dept.

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."

11 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Why so down? by elysiuan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Why so down? by E++99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Plus people like to take pride that we are much more advanced then we were 2000 years ago.

      Or rather, they get defensive, worrying that we AREN'T more advanced than we were 2,000 years ago. We're definitely more advanced if we get to pick the definition of "advanced", but that's not saying much. My definition of "advanced" would rest more on public morality and virtue than on technology; as would, incidentally, all the Greek philosophers' from Pythagoras to Aristotle. I see the era of this device, around 500 BC -- an era that included not only Plato and Socrates and their followers in the West, but Confucius and Lao-Tzu and their followers in the East -- a pinnacle of civilization that we have yet to again match.

  2. Re:Really? by 2short · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Judging by the above coments... by nitsnipe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Judging by the above coments... by rts008 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "...taking into consideration the religious beliefs and the gullibility of the masses on those times."

      And scientists today are still struggling up this same mountain.

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    2. Re:Judging by the above coments... by Seraphim_72 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, especially as it was those religious beliefs that allowed this device to be created in the first place, or did you miss the part about the Babylonian priests? Good God, can't you people get off your Anti-Religion Flaming Horse for one thread a day?

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  4. What putz tagged his !tech? by Brett+Buck · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You do realize that technology existed prior to computers, do you not? How the heck is this not technology?

            Brett

  5. Origins and uses by Whiteox · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
     

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  6. Re:Not so amazing inventions. by Petrushka · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    That's true with respect to some of the more abstract tricks they discovered and couldn't find a use for -- the steam engine, as you mentioned, or parabolic mirrors -- but there are an awful lot of areas where the ancient Greeks and Romans did indeed make full practical use of technologies that were lost for more than a millennium afterwards. The GPP mentioned architecture and building technology, which is a biggie. There's also road layout, sewerage, military tactics, field medicine, firefighting technology, and a whole lot more. So it is reasonable to regard the Middle Ages as a reversal in many ways.

    However, the rot set in earlier than most people think. A lot of it gets blamed on the rise of religious sects and the destruction of the library at Alexandria, but I see those as symptoms more than causes. A few centuries earlier there were lots of important libraries. If that had still been the case when the Alexandrian library was finally destroyed -- whenever that was -- its destruction wouldn't have mattered nearly as much.

  7. Re:Look, I know you're trolling but... by mangu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Europe in general was in a period of declining agricultural output, and not surprisingly, was concerned primarily with feeding themselves first.

    A natural consequence of declining technology

    It withstood repeated invasions by Muslim conquerors on two fronts

    Nature abhors a vacuum. If you are seen as ignorant savages, other people will try to invade.

    Not to mention a few bouts with the Plague which killed about 1/3 of Europe

    A disease carried by fleas, a consequence of the abolition of the Roman habit of bathing. To take a bath one needs to undress, nakedness might lead to sex, and virginity equals holiness according to the Roman Catholic church.

    And in spite of the above, the Catholic Church started the University system

    You mean the same church that burned the library of Alexandria and flayed and burned alive the librarian on a Christian church altar? The same church that burned alive a man who dared to question the official scientific "truth"? The same church that forced one of the inventors of the scientific method to deny his own discoveries?

  8. Re:Not so amazing inventions. by the_womble · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    Also Christianity does not teach that the material world does not matter. The afterlife is what matters, but what happens in this world determines what happens in the after life.

    Do you not think that the collapse of the Roman Empire and barbarian invasions might just have had something to do with the loss of knowledge?

    Who in Europe continued maintainning libraries and preserving knowledge through this period? The church, and monasteries in particular.