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The World's Oldest Computer May Have Predicted the Future (gizmodo.com)

Gizmodo reports: Discovered in an ancient shipwreck near Crete in 1901, the freakishly advanced Antikythera Mechanism has been called the world's first computer. A decades-long investigation into the 2,000 year-old-device is shedding new light onto this mysterious device... It wasn't programmable in the modern sense, but it's considered the world's first analog computer.
schwit1 shares a report from the Associated Press:: For over a century since its discovery in an ancient shipwreck, the exact function of the Antikythera Mechanism -- named after the southern Greek island off which it was found -- was a tantalizing puzzle.... After more than a decade's efforts using cutting-edge scanning equipment, an international team of scientists has now read about 3,500 characters of explanatory text -- a quarter of the original -- in the innards of the 2,100-year-old remains. They say it was a kind of philosopher's guide to the galaxy, and perhaps the world's oldest mechanical computer.

13 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. doesn't tell the future by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's kind of pointless to write an article about an ancient Greek text that was found if you don't report what the text actually said.
    Bonus points if you present a translation of the text, which neither article linked to actually does. (Most likely because the researchers aren't sure what the text actually says).

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:doesn't tell the future by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Too bad it didn't predict the shipwreck.

    2. Re:doesn't tell the future by jblues · · Score: 5, Funny

      The text said: "Primum Scribe!" (first post), followed by "Moo dixit boves mooo" (moo say the cows moo). After that "Nescis quid dicis de te twat stupri" (you don't know what you're talking about you fucking twat) and (mostly unintelligible) words of a similar nature.

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      If it acquires resources on instantiation like a duck, then its a shared_ptr<Duck>
  2. Obligatory by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The World's Oldest Computer May Have Predicted the Future

    ...the 2,000 year-old-device ... wasn't programmable in the modern sense, but it's considered the world's first analog computer.

    ...it was a kind of philosopher's guide to the galaxy, and perhaps the world's oldest mechanical computer.

    So... 42?

  3. Nostrodumbass by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Funny

    an international team of scientists has now read about 3,500 characters of explanatory text

    The fragment says, "...in 2100 years, an Oompa Loompa with strangely tiny fingers will attempt to rise to power. Beware, since he has the mark of the Beast on his forehead, which you can't see because he's got this weird thing going on with his hair. His wife will be a nice piece of Slovenian ass though, so big ups for that."

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.
  4. Of course it predicted the future. by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It predicted the future like a calendar or an almanac predicted the future. Jun 15 of the next year is going to be Sunday" or "the next full moon day is going to be on Jul 22". If you consider this predicting the future, oh yeah, it did. It is the whole point of the machine.

    This is a machine that simulated the movement of the planets and the moon using gears. The whole idea of this machine is to predict the phases of the moon and the location of the planets in the coming days.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Of course it predicted the future. by mark-t · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is a machine that simulated the movement of the planets and the moon using gears.

      Which is an orrery, not a computer. The only reason to label it the latter is for sensationalism.

      Although the fact that they could build something precise enough to achieve this over 2000 years ago is still pretty damn impressive.

    2. Re:Of course it predicted the future. by wierd_w · · Score: 4, Informative

      It is a purpse built analog mechanical computer.

      What it is not, is a universal computer, nor is it a reprogrammable computer.

      Any universal computer can simulate any other computer, even other universal computers. A purpose built single purpose computer is only capable of performing the calculations it was designed for.

      Compare: a modern universal computer against a mechanical cash register.

      The cash register does computations; generally, it keeps a running tally of a customer's transaction, as well as a running tally of total exchanges made during the day. It cant really do other kinds of tasks. It was not made to do so.

      Likewise, the antikythera mechanism is designed to perform computatuons: logically, when the sinusoid patterns of celestial objects will result in tangencies if overlaid. It really cant do other kinds of tasks. It was not made to do so.

      A universal computer can do both tasks, and any other task a computer is capable of being built for, because it was made to do so.

      The universal computer is fairly modern. purpose built computers are a very ancient thing. Do not try to conflate the two, or claim that one isnt a computer just because it is not a universal turing machine.

  5. Shit summary by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The World's Oldest Computer May Have Predicted the Future

    Y'know, it would be nice the summary even remotely hinted at how this thing "predicted in the future."

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  6. Re:So you slag Trump by objectifying his wife? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What hypocrisy? Has PopeRatzo previously taken a stance vehemently against personal attacks and sexual objectification (for comedic and satirical purposes)?

    Or, actually, did it occur to you that PopeRatzo might, in fact, be parodying Trump himself?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  7. Clearly not the first. by hey! · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nothing so advanced could have been the "first" thing of its kind. Think about it. If I told you to make a bronze wheel 140mm in diameter with 233 perfectly spaced teeth, would you know how to do it? With tools that were available in 200 BC Greece?

    No there is must have been an at least decades-old tradition of instrument-making leading up to the design and execution of the Antikythera Mechanism, stuff like armillary spheres and quadrants and such. At some point they must have made simpler instruments that maybe could use wheels coupled by friction, and from there the very notion of toothed gears (which we take for granted) could be invented.

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    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    1. Re:Clearly not the first. by wierd_w · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There was. Research the "temple wonders" that were used in ancient Greek (and later, Roman) temples.

      You will be surprised at the degree of engineering skill involved in their creation. Unlike in our modern world, ancient greek mathematics required detailed physical proofs of the predictions of the math, before it was considered true. You can see this in the reconstructed text of the archimedes palimpsest.

      It is very possible that this object was such a proof, made to present findings to nearby scholars.

    2. Re:Clearly not the first. by hey! · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This actually makes my point. This is the obvious kind of approach that would occur to any intelligent layman. And it would work for making short two or three wheel gear trains from very large gears where relative precision is easy to attain.

      But the Mechanism is both compact and incredibly elaborate -- far, far more elaborate than a clockwork. I dabble in watch repair so I would know; a basic clock train has five gears in the going train (which transfers power from the spring) and two in the motion work (which drive the hands) for a total of 7, and everything has to be perfect or the watch doesn't run. While the Mechanism is much larger than a watch -- about the size of a mantle clock -- its gear train had at least 30 individual gears. Backlash and other imperfections from crude manufacture, when multiplied over so many gears, would certainly translate into a frozen gear train. Even individual imperfections that were invisible to the naked eye would ruin the operation.

      So they must have had a much more sophisticated gear-machining method than chiseling out bronze blanks by hand. They might have filed teeth for gears of the required precision using some kind of index wheel arrangement; that would have occurred to the Greeks of all people. But the path to success with such methods is paved with many, many failures.

      Anyone capable of constructing something like this would have to have achieved a very high practical level of mastery at gear making before they even attempted something so difficult. Even if they took up gear making with this device in mind, they'd have made many, many proof-of-concept models with much less elaborate gear trains, because the failures they encountered at smaller scales would have guided them to ultimate success that much faster. So it's pretty clear this could not possibly have been the first such device.

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      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.