Recreating a Mysterious, 2,100-Year-Old Clock
fergus07 writes "Swiss watchmaker Hublot has created a scaled-down working replica of the ancient Antikythera mechanism. The question is — why on Earth would you want to strap one of these to your wrist? It barely tells the time, and it can't take pictures, tweet or connect to your Facebook. In fact, very few people would have the faintest idea what it is, or why you'd want one at all. But for those that do recognize its intricate gears and dials, this tiny, complex piece of machinery tells a vivid and incredible tale of gigantic scientific upheaval, of adventure and shipwreck on the high seas, of war and death."
> why on Earth would you want to strap one of these to your wrist Because here on earth, we know vanity and use status symbols to impress?
it can't take pictures, tweet or connect to your Facebook.
Because THAT'S what's important in a watch.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
The ad I see at the top of the page is for Fossil watches. ;-)
Because you can. Obviously.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Yep this is far from the first replica, but it's the first one I've seen made so tiny.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Antikythera in Lego
It's amazing in one respect, and sad in another. The Late Classical Greeks came so close to their own scientific revolution. If it hadn't been for the near culturally fatal effects of the Peloponnesian War, the Greeks may very well have invented science themselves. Can you imagine where we would be now if scientific methodology had fully blossomed 2,300 years ago?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
It's funny because its true.
I read the internet for the articles.
The article mentions this, and has a link to it. Replicating the device is not the achievement, doing so it such a small package is. They also threw in a few extra gears so it can tell time in addition to everything else.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
is a kit to build a working replica of the mechanism.
If it can be done in LEGO, surely we can create the RepRap CAD files to make one?
Per TFA:
The watch is a concept piece only, and will be presented at the Baselworld watch show in 2012.
Maybe if enough people begged, they might make a production run.
I wouldn't mind having one, but I'm not holding my breath.
"Lame" - Galaxar
and had you read the article you'd know they even mention the lego one in it
"why on Earth would you want to strap one of these to your wrist?" Because it's twenty percent cooler than a Rolex.
to your wrist?
It's obvious! So that you're ready for when the evil Kythera Mechanism shows up!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
If you have to ask "Why?" when talking about this project, I pity your lack of intelligence and creativity.
Are you mad?!?! You like the idea of naked oiled youths zipping through the aether in astervarka, possibly meeting psychic aliens and bringing them home?
Do you really want to meet the nude dude with the Ood?
A lot of nerds simply don't get horology. They'll consider hand-crafted masterpieces as "junk" that your el-cheapo thinkgeek-powered watch renders useless...
But not all nerds are like that: quite some of them also recognize true craftmanship and fine horology when they see some. I do certainly see the appeal of such a watch for people into pure mechanical watches...
So I'm suddenly imagining an alternate "steam punk" timeline in which we had mechanisms and gears 2000 years ago. It's always amazing to see what was really known back that far.
That's absolutely cool.
As someone with a lot of watches, that Hublot wrist watch is a really cool timepiece. A skeleton watch with 2000 years of history to it.
Though, as other people have pointed out, I bet this would cost a pretty penny.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Chuckle at the "made by aliens" silliness as we all do, there really is a mystery to this device.
Archimedes was more than brilliant enough to work out the math for this orrery, also to work out the design for gear tooth profiles. He had the position and influence to have access to materials and the best crafts-people of the time. But how did they actually build that thing?
In theory an astonishingly good watchmaker could hand-file all those gears. In practice, I'm not so sure. Gears are finicky things, every single tooth must have the correct angular position, pitch diamerter and involute profile. A gear can look very pretty but simply not work with another gear. (I have made several such.) If you don't believe it, just go to a hardware store, buy a riffler file kit and some brass washers, then have at it. No microscope, no computer, no plotter. Any tools you hypothesize have to be built using the same starting conditions. It will be an educational experience. One of your observations will be that you can not see well enough to get the profile to adequately match the math for two gears to mesh smoothly.
So the greatest mystery, for me, is: How did they make the measurements required for this work?
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
don't ruin the plot of the next dan brown book/ the next nicholas cage national treasure movie
this sort of speculation does not belong in the halls of science. it belongs rightly in the realm of populist lowest common denominator pulp fiction with paranoid conspiracy theories studded throughout
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The ad I see at the top of the page is for Fossil watches. ;-)
Mother******* Adsense spots, how do they work?
Actually, they use a complicated system of 84 gears ...
I'd like to take the person responsible for the first image out and punch him in the nose, for using Greek look-alike letters as substitutes for Latin letters. Using a Lambda as a capital A or a Sigma as a capital E is the worst form of international illiteracy.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
That was inspiring and cool. I can't wait until I can let my son near something like that and have him be interested in more than destroying it. :)
And since time flies, his sentence makes perfect sense.
You know, I always had trouble with the phrase "time flies when you're having fun". If I'm having fun, why would I want to time flies?
Free Martian Whores!
It was looking awesome until I saw the close up, where horribly misuse Greek letters according to their coincidental resemblance to Roman letters. They use a Lambda instead of an "A"! ARRRRRGHH! I'd hate myself for having that on my wrist.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
APK has an account now?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?