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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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
Directly and indirectly, religon has been responsible for more people dying than any other cause EVER.
I see this often, but it's just plain wrong.
Secular leaders ushering in various forms of extreme socialism managed to surpass it in a single century, and general nationalism was far ahead of it anyway.
It was true 5000 years ago. And it's still true today.
Religion was the top killer 5000 years ago? I'd love to see your sources for that.
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
Its like the Huns and the Babylonian empire never slaughtered anyone if you're an atheist.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
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!
Directly and indirectly, religon has been responsible for more people dying than any other cause EVER.
I see this often, but it's just plain wrong.
Secular leaders ushering in various forms of extreme socialism managed to surpass it in a single century, and general nationalism was far ahead of it anyway.
Actually, if you examine the top "secular" deathmongering followings, you find that their "non-religious" states actually implemented the same exact sort of faith-based unswerving belief in fact-defying mythology you find in religion. National Socialism was based on "uncritical loyalty" to the Fuhrer, and embraced such outlandish beliefs as that the Aryans were not descended from apes, but were aliens from outer space sent to rule the Earth; the Marxist/Communist regimes (while paying lip service to rationalism) were marked by rigid adherence to laughable ideologies like the "socialist" biology of Lysenko, as distinguished from "capitalist" biology of Mendel and Darwin. Face it, the only thing that can motivate people to mass-murder is an irrational, unjustified belief in some sort of bullshit worldview. "Faith", i.e. unjustified belief, is the very heart of the definition of religion. The most monstrous crimes against humanity have invariably been inspired by unjustified belief. It is the propensity for people to ignorantly believe in religious or religion-analogous movements that is the problem. Religion is a weird "protected" bit of cultural idiocy that for some reason people think should be "tolerated" because "we're all different". Well, ignorance and irrationality isn't some special "different" sort of intelligence, any more than not being able to read is a special sort of literacy. Religion is a cancer. The sooner we can shitcan it as a species, the better.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
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.
And the only thing that can motivate them to stark rationalism is? I dont see where Atheism is the answer. If I read you right it is Faith itself and not religion that is the problem. So why not hate every faith based thing? Why chose religion for your ire?
Face it, the only thing that can motivate people to mass-murder is an irrational, unjustified belief in some sort of bullshit worldview.
True. And Atheism solves this how? Honestly Atheism is becoming one of them with every post like yours. Welcome Cog of the Machine. And you wind up with a religion flame, yet you encompase every *ism known with that. Anarchy is great until you have to live in it. Can you get a drink from the tap in your house? Does your Internet/phone/TV work? Thank the people that keep Anarchy at bay then.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
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.
Meanwhile, World War 2 casualties are estimated at 72 million.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
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
And the only thing that can motivate them to stark rationalism is? I dont see where Atheism is the answer. If I read you right it is Faith itself and not religion that is the problem. So why not hate every faith based thing? Why chose religion for your ire?
Most people that consider themselves atheist ARE against all "faith based things" - it's just that religion is the most pervasive and damaging one in our society at present, and so is an important target. If religion were stamped out tomorrow, we would probably then be complaining primarily about horoscopes in the newspaper (they cause people to act irrationally and often to the detriment of the society around them, so while it's nowhere near as bad as religion, that would be next on my personal hit-list).
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
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Religion was the top killer 5000 years ago? I'd love to see your sources for that.
Come on, how could he link to a f*in papyrus?!
Smallpox would beg to differ.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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.
Please tell me you are not suggesting that the infrastructure of the world is being held up solely by faith.
My water/internet/phone/TV all work because there's a company out there that I am paying in exchange for the service. There is no faith or belief involved, other than maybe hoping my tubes don't freeze in winter.
Do not confuse atheism (lack of faith) for anarchy (lack of government, which incidentally isn't in charge of any of the 4 above things anyway...). They are two incredibly different things.
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.
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.
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!
I guess I haven't explained what I meant so well.
To answer your last statement first, I agree they are two different things. Not even on the same plane really.
To answer your first question though, yes, I do believe that faith hold up the infrastructure of the world, but hear me out. I don't mean Faith with a capital "I'm close to being a cross" F. I mean with all the little bits and big bits of small f faith that go on every day.
For example I have faith that I will have a job tomorrow. I have faith that I will have electricity tomorrow. I have faith that my spouse is not out fooling around on me. I have faith that the world will be a better place over time, I have faith that the new administration will be better.
Without these sorts of faiths a regular life would be impossible.
That is what I was trying to point out.
Without those little f faiths you would have anarchy. And that is how I always read the "I have no faith in anything" posts. I always think yeah you do, or you would literally go nuts.
Now I admit I go a giant step forward (and you would say ridiculously far so) and have Faith as it is commonly thought of, I see it as a calyx thing.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
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
Most people who declare themselves atheists follow that declaration with a tirade which would make any firebrand preacher proud. Zealotry is the problem, not what it's aimed at or against; and frankly, we're never going to be rid of it, no matter how culture might evolve, because it is inherently rewarding to whip yourself into a frenzy, chant with the crowd, and feel you're part of the good fight against the infidels/heretics/imperialists/cultists/whatever.
Horoscopes don't cause people to act irrationally. Rather, irrational people pick a source of guidance randomly. If newspapers didn't publish horoscopes, they'd simply go to fortune-tellers or read their palms or tea leaves or whatever.
Besides, aren't horoscopes in newspapers usually of the "you need to be cautious in your affairs" variety ? You'd think following that kind of advice would be an improvement, at least for the kind of person who'd believe in horoscopes in the first place ;).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Most people who declare themselves atheists follow that declaration with a tirade
Sorry for trotting out an old meme, but [citation needed]
Most people who consider themselves atheist just "get on with their lives" and don't give it a second thought unless someone brings it up. This is probably less true these days in countries like the US, since there's been quite a resurgence of more fundamentalist beliefs there over the past decade, but in most of the world, we just don't care.
My post was perhaps leaning towards the "tirade" side of things a little and I do apologise at least a bit for that (I stand by my views, but think I could have perhaps been more civil about it), but honestly, I didn't start the discussion...
Zealotry is the problem, not what it's aimed at or against
I agree wholeheartedly.
Horoscopes don't cause people to act irrationally
Usually not, but in some cases they do... especially when someone in a position of power makes business (or governmental) decisions based on their horoscope. It's rare, but it does happen and that's pretty scary really.
Besides, aren't horoscopes in newspapers usually of the "you need to be cautious in your affairs" variety ?
Sometimes, but sometimes they'll also say things like, "today is a day to take bold steps!" or whatever.
In general from your post, I think we're probably of a similar mindset, however have differing worldviews (possibly based on the cultures we live in and are most familiar with)...
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Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan