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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."

33 of 258 comments (clear)

  1. Poor guy should have asked around by Skyshadow · · Score: 5, Funny
    I feel bad now, I could have saved him years of work -- I still have an original Antikythera 01 on my desk here at work.

    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.
    1. Re:Poor guy should have asked around by empesey · · Score: 5, Funny

      You're wasting your time. I picked mine up at the Antik Road Show.

    2. Re:Poor guy should have asked around by bursch-X · · Score: 4, Funny

      The Greek actually used the programming language Gamma which was the predecessor of "C".

      --
      There are two rules for success:
      1. Never tell everything you know.
  2. ,100-Year-Old Antikythera Device Recreated in Work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm prokythera, you insensitive clod.

  3. 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 jellomizer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They are just down because they didn't come up with it first.

      Plus people like to take pride that we are much more advanced then we were 2000 years ago.
      However after the burning of the Library of Alexandra it sent man kind 1000 years back in progress. The thousands of years after have been in general very tough for human survival only for the past 500 years or so have we caught up, but before that the concept of playing with gears and realizing that if you have a small one and a large one they move at different speeds was to academic and in general worthless as it didn't put food on the table.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Why so down? by devotedlhasa · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...but enough about COBOL...

    3. Re:Why so down? by kandela · · Score: 5, Funny

      First uttered by the Librarian of Alexandra 1000 years ago, "I'll back it up tomorrow."

      --
      Conservation of angular momentum makes the world go round.
    4. 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.

  4. i am afraid by sleepy_sanchez · · Score: 5, Funny

    and so starts the story of Sylar, the villain watchmaker.

  5. Antikythera by EdZ · · Score: 5, Funny

    Thank goodness we're prepared for when the sinister Kythera device is unearthed.

  6. 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.

  7. Failed Order by Beardo+the+Bearded · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Failed Order by hotdiggitydawg · · Score: 5, Funny

      I see you are a Dell customer...

    2. Re:Failed Order by jcr · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'll never forget that "world shortage of glass" line they gave me as an excuse for my monitors being delayed. They were flatpanels.

      I don't think they were lying to you. I recall hearing about a fire a couple of years ago at some plant in Japan that specialized in glass for LCD substrates. It affected Samsung and Matsushita.

      -jcr

      --
      The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  8. 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?

      --
      Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
    3. Re:Judging by the above coments... by jollyreaper · · Score: 4, Funny

      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?

      Tell me more about the horse. That sounds awesome.

      --
      Kwisatz Haderach
      Sell the spice to CHOAM
      This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
  9. 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

  10. That's crazy talk! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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!

  11. Is it on ThinkGeek yet? by erroneus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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!

  12. It's sad, not amazing by mangu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's that the mechanism is amazing by the standards of at least 1000 years after it was apparently manufactured

    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?

    1. Re:It's sad, not amazing by tick-tock-atona · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, much Greek and Roman knowledge was retained and built upon by the Islamic Empire during the Islamic Golden Age, from the 8th to the 16th century.

  13. 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.
     

    --
    Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
  14. 3D lighting pictures of the Device by Richard+W.M.+Jones · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
  15. No wireless. Less space than a nomad. by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lame.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  16. Not so amazing inventions. by mosb1000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. 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.

    2. 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.

  17. Re:RELIGON KILLS THE MOST PEOPLE by Pantero+Blanco · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  18. 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?

  19. Re:In that case.... by ideonode · · Score: 5, Funny

    Beowulf imagined a cluster of one of these!