Main Antikythera mechanism fragment. The mechanism consists of a complex system of 32 wheels and plates with inscriptions relating to the signs of the zodiac and the months. Image: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, No. 15987.
Posted on 01/11/2015 1:41:07 AM PST by SunkenCiv
Main Antikythera mechanism fragment. The mechanism consists of a complex system of 32 wheels and plates with inscriptions relating to the signs of the zodiac and the months. Image: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, No. 15987.
A digital image of the surface inscriptions on the Antikythera Mechanism.
It’s part of a SKITTLES dispenser.
The best description for this: If you took ten of the best scientist and engineers of our times today, and locked them into a vault with no access to computers, and gave them a simple detailed requirement to develop or design something like this out of thin air......it might take forty years and you can’t even be sure of the success of the end-result.
Somewhere out there....two and three thousand years ago....we had brilliant men...generations ahead of Einstein. And what they knew....was lost.
Thanks, but that’s just not true. The math available to Einstein was far beyond what the ancient Greeks had available, they couldn’t even make an arrow hit a man, as the old saying goes (couldn’t solve for two unknowns).
Whatever the mechanism was used for (probably just eclipse predictions and lunar cycles, and within a narrow range of centuries, it wouldn’t work today; at one time it was speculated that it was an early attempt to enhance navigation by calculating longitude), the construction was based on astronomical observations. That’s the real insight, how much did the Greeks know, and how accurately? Turns out, not as accurate as the Mayans.
The scientists of the Manhattan Project still used mechanical calculators and formulas on blackboards. Here’s a link about the progress made in computers as a result of the needs of the Manhattan Project (rather than the other way around):
http://www.mphpa.org/classic/HISTORY/H-06c18.htm
The Abacus: A Brief History
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/history.html
Zero — Greeks and Romans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0_(number)#Greeks_and_Romans
Pez.
No, my guess is this device was built for the Greeks by the Babylonians that they had conquered and was being shipped by boat when it floundered. It was probably for a King's administration for telling the times of such events faithfully. It's value, at that time, is inestimable.
Bump.
I agree completely with your value estimate. When I think of just the DESIGN of this mechanism, my head swims. a box of 340cm Length (11.15") by 180cm W (5.90") by 90cm D (2.95") containing a minimum of 30 bronze gears and hand crank - WOW!!
There is a short but very interesting YouTube video of a London, English Museum Curator, Michael Wright, describing his multi-year effort to reconstruct the mechanism (2008). Given that one side displays the visually retrograde movements of the 5 known planets of the time, that apparently were 'handled' by multiple gearing.
The Wikipedia article on this mechanism does indicate (at bottom) that the design was in advance of the available mechanical skill needed for the implementation. Still I would imagine that this entire mechanism required a very wealthy patron, a designer close in skill and knowledge to Archimedes and a master-level workshop and artisans to produce it over a period of years!
Indeed, it may be a push to assume that it really worked or worked reliably! It could have been the equivalent of a White Elephant, known to have great potential but so balky and cranky as to be totally frustrating!
I think those guys who work on Rolex watches could fix this thing up in a jiffy.......
I doubt that. I believe that we have found multiple written references to what we now know were Antikythera devices.
I meant last yr. (2014). Of all the silly bunny in the clouds crap, the whacko UFOists dream up, this is the one single thing found that I believe defies explanation.
Why would the Babylonians need to know when the Olympic games were to be held? The machine is Greek in origin.
(1)Wouldn't these designs be all over?, and showing up on imagery? . (2) Why is the design so weathered like an archeological find, and not sharp and crisp, like if the tool was recently used?
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