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Related: About this forumScientist tackles mystery of Greek astronomical mechanism
Scientist tackles mystery of Greek astronomical mechanism
By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times
January 11, 2015 Updated 6 hours ago
The shoebox-size chunk of bronze didnt attract much attention when divers retrieved it from an ancient shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901. Archaeologists on the expedition had their hands full with far more impressive finds, including life-size statues of warriors and horses, delicate glass bowls and scores of ceramic vessels called amphorae.
Decades would pass before scientists realized that the nondescript bronze now called the Antikythera Mechanism was the biggest treasure of all.
The device consisted of a series of intricate, interlocking gears designed to predict eclipses and calculate the positions of the sun, moon and planets as they swept across the sky.
The machine exhibited a level of technological sophistication no one dreamed was possible when it was built, at least 2,000 years ago. Europe produced nothing to equal it until the geared clocks of the medieval period, more than a thousand years later. Some scholars describe the Antikythera Mechanism as the worlds first analog computer.
The amazing thing is the mechanical engineering aspect, says James Evans, a physicist and science historian at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash. He is part of an international group working to crack the puzzle of the devices origins and purpose. Evans recently added a new twist with an analysis that suggests it dates to 205 B.C. as much as a century earlier than previously believed.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2015/01/11/4459600_scientist-tackles-mystery-of-the.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy
John1956PA
(2,659 posts)TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)such as the clepsydra mechanism, that were certainly crude compared to this.
But, every age has its mad geniuses and their obsessions. This could be the work of one of those.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)(but honestly I love all these mechanical oracles)
packman
(16,296 posts)[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)"Science and the technical wonders it produces CAN blaze suddenly towards the heavens and then just as quickly return to the desert sands, lost and forgotten." Quote from a 2007 article in The Arkansas Oklahoma Astronomical Society online journal. The article is a reflection on all that was lost from science in the ancient world with events like the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria:
A sketch of the internal workings of the Antikythera Mechanism.