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."

Comments

vanity

[e**(i pi)-1]

> 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?

Re:vanity

[The Yuckinator]

Actually, yes it does...

From TFA:

Hublot's own working replica of the Antikythera mechanism, scaled down from shoebox size to wristwatch size, and with a built in clock circuit so it can tell the time as well as make its astronomical predictions.

Re:vanity

[ShavedOrangutan]

At any given moment, I can see the current time on:

Office: desk phone, laptop, pc, wall clock, cell phone.
Kitchen: wall phone, wall clock, microwave, stove, cell phone.
Living room: cable box, DVD player, wall clock, cell phone.
Bedroom: alarm clock, weather station, cell phone.
Car: radio, satellite receiver, GPS, cell phone.

So I can't figure out why anybody would wear a wrist watch, unless for fashion. And that makes even less sense.

Re:vanity

[gstoddart]

So I can't figure out why anybody would wear a wrist watch, unless for fashion. And that makes even less sense.

Fashion is part of it. So I can tell time in meetings if there is no clock. Because it takes 2 seconds to look at my watch, and more to dig out my cell phone, so when I'm walking it comes in handy. Because there's something really beautiful about a mechanical watch with its gears exposed. Because you can get used to wearing a watch, and if you're not wearing one it can feel odd. Occasionally having an alarm comes in handy. Or a stopwatch.

Just because it doesn't make any sense to you that doesn't mean that other people don't have reasons for wearing a watch.

They also make more than one flavor of ice-cream, too.

Re:vanity

[mcgrew]

On the other hand, I can't figure out why anybody would carry a cell phone, unless for fashion.

Dad? Is that you? When did you get a computer? I can't figure out why anyone would want a landline phone, all you can do with one is make and recieve calls, and it doesn't even work unless you're home. I don't have a landline. But my phone makes and recieves calls, texts, emails, accesses the internet, is a calandar, a calculator, a camera, a movie camera... it's a damned handy device to have.

If you're not my 80 year old dad you must be trolling.

Re:vanity

[Obfuscant]

That's odd, my $100 Motorola is the best phone I've owned, and I've had phones since the rotary days.

You young whippersnapper. I remember when you had to pick up the earpiece and tap the hanger a couple of times to get Madge's attention down at central and then you'd ask to be connected.

And before that if you wanted to talk to someone at the other end of town you walked over and did it in person. Good for your health, less stress. You wanted to talk to someone in the next city over, you waited until they invented the telegraph and sent one of those newfangled things.

Now get off my lawn.

Re:vanity

[snakeplissken]

wait until they invented the telegraph?

i had to wait until horses evolved!

*eyeroll*

[JustAnotherIdiot]

it can't take pictures, tweet or connect to your Facebook.

Because THAT'S what's important in a watch.

Re:*eyeroll*

[Abstrackt]

My solution is just to loudly yell every action as I take it.

Re:This has been done before

[GameboyRMH]

Yep this is far from the first replica, but it's the first one I've seen made so tiny.

Antikythera in Lego

[Anonymous Coward]

Antikythera in Lego

Amazing

[MightyMartian]

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?

Re:Amazing

[identity0]

They invented this watch, unfortunately they patented it and drove all competitors out of business before collapsing themselves ;-)

Thankfully, 2,100 years later their patents and copyrights have expired, so we can open-source it.

Assuming, of course, Hublot hasn't patented it themselves.

Re:Amazing

[alexgieg]

Way past the distant memory of peak oil and even "post oil"? Not to mention peak- and post- almost everything else industrially useful.

But that's an incorrect historical take on the matter. To blossom a contemporaneous-like science requires, among other things, an extremely solid logical and mathematical foundation, way past what had been developed back in Ancient Greece, plus a very specific kind of world view that only developed once, under a very specific historical context. The first two aspects were advanced to the point of usefulness only during the three later centuries of (what we now call) the Middle Ages, while the third aspect required two more centuries, building upon the first two aspects. These three simply weren't available at the time.

What doesn't mean considering the possibility isn't fun. There are some quite nice alternate history fiction on the subject out there.

Re:Amazing

[InfiniteZero]

Well the Peloponnesian War predates this clock by about 300 years...

But the ancient Greeks indeed came so close to the scientific and industrial revolution that it makes a fascinating fiction of alternative history. For example they even had working steam engine and railway around the same time period of the clock:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diolkos

Re:Amazing

[Rob Riggs]

The Greeks would have known millenia ago that Hades is not a planet!

Re:Amazing

[ElectricTurtle]

Roman society was born from and thrived upon 'barbarity' (an ironic description considering it is a term whose Latin etymological origin meant persons/cultures who were not Roman). It was not a devolution, it was the impetus and drive of the culture which led it to a leadership role throughout the Mediterranean world. This cold pragmatism led to things like the rape of the Sabines (which was not some aberrant exception to Roman behavior, marriage rites in the earliest Roman society included ritualized kidnapping and 'free prostitution' {citation: Otto Kiefer's Sexual Life in Ancient Rome, which is not in front of me at the moment so I can't give you a page number}). In order for Rome to achieve and maintain its success it had to actively fight against human rights and equality. It fought several wars against its slaves (the Servile Wars), ruthlessly put down several populist movements (the brothers Gracchus among many, most of which probably had anti-populist ulterior motives in the end anyway), and would decimate any population in revolt.

Rome fell not because it was brutal (as it always had been), but because it ceased to be. It had built an empire upon exceptionalism and an inhumane disregard for any opposition, and this simply could not be translated to fit the mindset of the early church as it was instituted as the state religion. It would not be until the Crusades that the clergy would succeed in bastardizing Christianity enough that it could be used as an excuse for further military brutality.

Re:Amazing

[CRCulver]

And the dark ages wouldn't have been quite so dark if "The Church" hadn't insisted on things like Galileo being wrong about heliocentrism until nine years ago.

Historians no longer use the term "Dark Ages" and haven't for decades. Late antiquity and the early medieval era was considerably more complicated than that oversimplification. Also, blaming Christianity for societal collapse in the Western Roman Empire ignores the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire went on for another thousand years, and if anything, it had an even greater bond between church and state.

Re:Amazing

[MightyMartian]

The Empire was already in serious decline by the time of the Edict of Milan. You can't really blame Christianity for Rome's failure. A modern understanding reveals that Rome was thumped by the first major wave of invaders out of the Asian Steppe. The economic dislocation, which came before the outright physical disruption (ie. the Huns) were too much for the Roman economy to bear. This was an Empire basically kept together through massive military spending, and thus the underlying economy had to be strong, but as that was shaken, Rome basically entered an age of reaction, rather than action, and blow after blow took it out down. Everything Rome did from that point on; Diocletian's reforms, debasement of the currency, conversion to Christianity, the filling of the Legions with German tribesmen of dubious loyalty, all amounted to stop-gate measures.

Not that I'm defending Christianity, being an atheist myself, but I just find blaming Christianity for the failure is really a matter of putting the cart before the horse.

Re:Amazing

[mister_dave]

Not true. The church sponsored scientific discovery. In a world created by God, the laws of nature are God's laws, and worthy of study.

The adjective 'medieval' is now a synonym for superstition and ignorance. Yet without the work of medieval scholars there could have been no Galileo, no Newton and no Scientific Revolution. In "God's Philosophers", James Hannam traces the neglected roots of modern science in the medieval world. He debunks many of the myths about the Middle Ages, showing that medieval people did not think the earth was flat, nor did Columbus 'prove' that it is a sphere. Contrary to common belief, the Inquisition burnt nobody for their science, nor was Copernicus afraid of persecution. No Pope tried to ban human dissection or the number zero. On the contrary, as Hannam reveals, the Middle Ages gave rise to staggering achievements in both science and technology: for instance, spectacles and the mechanical clock were both invented in thirteenth-century Europe. Ideas from the Far East, like printing, gunpowder and the compass, were taken further by Europeans than the Chinese had imagined possible. The compass helped Columbus to discover the New World in 1492 while printing allowed an incredible 20 million books to be produced in the first 50 years after Gutenberg published his Bible in 1455. And Hannam argues that scientific progress was often made thanks to, rather than in spite of, the influence of Christianity. Charting an epic journey through six centuries of history, "God's Philosophers" brings back to light the discoveries of neglected geniuses like John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine, as well as putting into context the contributions of more familiar figures like Roger Bacon, William of Ockham and St Thomas Aquinas. Besides being a thrilling history of a period of surprising invention and innovation, "God's Philosophers" reveals the debt modern science and technology owe to the supposedly 'dark' ages of medieval Europe.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gods-Philosophers-Medieval-Foundations-Science/dp/1848311508/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321560353&sr=1-1

http://jameshannam.com/

Re:Amazing

[Luyseyal]

Another commentator mentioned the economic aspect. I won't repeat what s/he said but I did want to add that the Roman economy was largely predicated on conquering territories to generate tax revenue. Why? Because the Senate had voted to exempt themselves from all taxation. As they gained more and more land, it generated less money for the treasury necessitating conquering more people.

-l

P.s., I don't have a citation right now.

Re:Amazing

[ElectricTurtle]

The Edict of Milan neither established Christianity as the state religion nor did a mark a turning point in the empire's status. The demarcation comes when Theodosius I establishes Christianity as the religion of the state, and by the way, the borders of the empire from Diocletian to Theodosius I are largely the same. It is, in fact, only after Theodosius and the sea change in Roman civic life with regard to religion that the empire itself begins to shrink. Cases can be made for systemic weakness at just about any time in Rome's history.

You also have your history quite backward. The Huns were not an active pressure upon Rome until after its Christianization. When the Edict of Milan granted religious tolerance (not establishment), the Hunic Empire didn't even exist. By Theodosius I's time, it had barely managed to tame it's barbarian neighbors and still posed no direct threat to Rome. That came much later.

So while there's a certain argument for correlation doesn't equal causation, the real decline of the empire did occur *after* the Christianization. Lots of seeds were sewn before then, both systemically and by some very poor decisions. As an example of the latter, the carrot of Romanization, Roman citizenship, was devalued to nothing by a double blow under Caracalla. First, it was made universal to all free men in the territories. Second, Caracalla got butthurt by the Alexandrians' mockery of him and order thousands of them slaughtered, which, if they were now truly full Roman citizens, inexcusably violated the basic tenet that no Roman citizen could be executed without trial. Roman citizenship was no longer something anybody had to seek, nor was it anything somebody would want.

Rome could have persisted through the barbarians' rise if it would have worked with them instead of being delusional about its superiority. Alaric I who sacked Rome was in fact part of Theodosius' legions (what a coincidence, the emperor who established Christianity...), and was a mercenary for Rome until Honorius betrayed him and his Roman handler Flavius Stilicho. Because Rome broke its promise to pay Alaric and his men, and purged many mercenaries and their families whose survivors clamored to Alaric to lead them in revenge, he did so. If Rome had given the deference Alaric had asked for and not persecuted other foederati, the Western Roman Empire might have been stable enough to resist the Hunic hordes. Hypothetically.

Either way, the important point hear is that you have your history very backwards. The most significant pressures from barbarians and the Huns specifically undeniably followed, not preceded, the establishment of Christianity within the Roman Empire.

I love the bit of snark in the article

[jandrese]

It was such a technological leap that no doubt the "History" channel has already run a series of "documentaries" showing how it was built by aliens.

It's funny because its true.

Re:This has been done before

[DrgnDancer]

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.

RepRap Map needed

[Anonymous Coward]

If it can be done in LEGO, surely we can create the RepRap CAD files to make one?

You can't have one

[Crudely_Indecent]

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.

Re:You can't have one

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you? Part of the 99%?

Re:You can't have one

[Anonymous Coward]

You're off by about two orders of magnitude. Check the price of the much less complicated Patek Celestial. Hublot sells watches for six digits that only tell the time.

Because you can

[djl4570]

"why on Earth would you want to strap one of these to your wrist?" Because it's twenty percent cooler than a Rolex.

Why on Earth would you want to strap one of these

[sconeu]

to your wrist?

It's obvious! So that you're ready for when the evil Kythera Mechanism shows up!

Shame on the Author

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have to ask "Why?" when talking about this project, I pity your lack of intelligence and creativity.

A lot of nerds don't get horology...

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Really cool ...

[gstoddart]

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.

Re:Really cool ...

[Lumpy]

Just imagine what we lost when the idiot Christians burned the Library of Alexandria.
Just imagine how much was lost in ideas because if stupid laws or traditions in a certain islam bible.
Just imagine how many scientists were killed in early society in general because their ideas or understanding was greater than some monarch, and we cant have that!

Humanity has gone out of it's way to destroy knowledge in the name of hating change. Organized political Religion (Catholic church, Radical Islam, Moonies, David Koresh, Church of the Latter Day saints, Scientology, etc....) is simply a powerful tool to help spread hate and control. None of these religions have ANY use other than to keep certain people in power and rich at the expense of others.

Knowledge levels the playing field, therefore heads of powerful organizations go out of their way to SQUASH knowledge as it threatens their power and might.

Not all religion does this, but the ones that have a few that benefit greatly over the control of a large group of followers does.

The 'Mysterious' part.

[leftover]

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?

Re:Obligatory meme butcher

[Smallpond]

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 ...

Re:Who cares if it...

[mcgrew]

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?

Greek alphabet abuse

[Michael Woodhams]

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.