Posted on 04/30/2006 7:21:04 PM PDT by blam
The existence of "modern" metal gears at that time seems strange.
Reconstruction
The History Channel did a good job on this. "Gears from the Greeks" by De Solla Price is a fascinating book, even if he didn't get it quite right.
Where's the keyboard and monitor? How do you plug it in?
They find some ancient royal Greek geek's music box (Ipod) and these freaks call it a computer?
You don't have to plug it in. Was steam driven.
You fire it up.
In all seriousness, I saw the show and still think it was either a music box or a device for animating some sort of statue or display, whether the mainspring rotted away or it was steam powered is no matter.
That being said, on anything short of a modern CNC machine the manufacturing of gears is still quite touchy. At least with the CNC, you can make scrap faster!
Go to the AGMA. That's the American Gear Manufacturing Association.
It looks like a watt-hour meter. Did the guy find any TVs and radios?
Thanks Blam. Two similar topics:
Did The Ancient Greeks Make A Computer?
An Article | 1977 | Lionel Casson
Posted on 11/01/2003 12:21:03 PM EST by Holly_P
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1012790/posts
The Antikythera Mechanism: Physical and Intellectual Salvage from the 1st Century B.C.
USNA Eleventh Naval History Symposium | 1995 | Rob S. Rice
Posted on 08/14/2004 6:01:21 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1191651/posts
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Amazing
It's not mentioned here but in 1900 there was speculation that it could have been tossed off of a much more modern ship, and just happened to "land" among the Antikythera wreckage.
It's not entirely surprising. For one thing, Archimedes built some amazing mechanical weapons back then (as well as calculated mass and put "leverage" into scientific context).
For another, there is a **reason** that our language calls them planetary gears, historically.
Neat. Hadn't thought of that.
.
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