A few years ago, John Gleave, an orrery maker based in the United Kingdom, decided to construct a working replica of the original mechanism.
www.grand-illusions.com/ antikyth.htm
Posted on 06/07/2006 8:44:29 PM PDT by InvisibleChurch
The size of a shoebox, a mysterious bronze device scooped out of a Roman-era shipwreck at the dawn of the 20th century has baffled scientists for years. Now a British researcher has stunningly established it as the world's oldest surviving astronomy computer.
A team of Greek and British scientists probing the secrets of the Antikythera Mechanism has managed to decipher ancient Greek inscriptions unseen for over 2,000 years, members of the project say.
"Part of the text on the machine, over 1,000 characters, had already been deciphered, but we have succeeded in doubling this total," said physician Yiannis Bitsakis, part of a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from universities in Athens, Salonika and Cardiff, the Athens National Archaeological Museum and the Hewlett-Packard company.
"We have now deciphered 95 percent of the text," he told AFP.
Scooped out of a Roman shipwreck located in 1900 by sponge divers near the southern Greek island of Antikythera, and kept at the Athens National Archaeological Museum, the Mechanism contains over 30 bronze wheels and dials, and is covered in astronomical inscriptions.
Probably operated by crank, it survives in three main pieces and some smaller fragments.
"(The device) could calculate the position of certain stars, at least the Sun and Moon, and perhaps predict astronomical phenomena," said astrophysicist Xenophon Moussas of Athens University.
"It was probably rare, if not unique," he added.
The rarity of the Antikythera Mechanism precluded its removal from the museum, so an eight-tonne 'body scanner' had to be assembled on-site for the privately-funded project, which used three-dimensional tomography to expose the unseen inscriptions.
The first appraisal of the Mechanism's purpose was put forward in the 1960s by British science historian Derek Price, but the scientists' latest discovery raises more questions.
"It is a puzzle concerning astronomical and mathematical knowledge in antiquity," said Moussas. "The Mechanism could actually rewrite certain chapters in this area."
"The challenge is to place this device into a scientific context, as it comes almost out of nowhere... and flies in the face of established theory that considers the ancient Greeks were lacking in applied technical knowledge," adds Bitsakis, also of Athens University.
The researchers are also looking at the broader remains of the Roman ship -- believed to have sunk around 80 BC -- for clues to the Mechanism's origin.
One theory under examination is that the device was created in an academy founded by the ancient Stoic philosopher Poseidonios on the Greek island of Rhodes.
The writings of 1st-century AD Roman orator and philosopher Cicero -- himself a former student of Poseidonios -- cite a device with similarities to the Mechanism.
"Like Alexandria, Rhodes was a great centre of astronomy at the time," said Moussas. "The boat where the device was discovered could have been part of a convoy to Rome, bearing treasure looted from the island for the purpose of a triumph parade staged by Julius Caesar."
The new findings are to be discussed at an international congress (www.antikythera-mechanism.gr) scheduled to be held in Athens in November.
LOL! Someone was ahead of Gore!
And, it explains where the missing crank went.
But I despair that we will even learn how to live together...
ping?
There was a show about it on the History Channel several months ago.
I think that if you do a little research, you'll find that the Church was a bastion that protected and encouraged scientific endeavor.
Is it enough to prove that the sun really does go around the earth?
Your view of history is the usual misinformation. The cause of what you call the "dark ages" was the barbarian conquest of the Roman empire. The barbarians were pagans by and large. As they became Christianized, they acquired civilization. It is hardly the case that there were hundreds or thousands of physicists during the Middle Ages who were suppressed by the Catholic Church from doing science. No one was doing science, because most people were illiterate. On the whole, the Church fostered the recovery from the barbarian upsets, by preserving and copying ancient texts, by creating universities, by valuing scholars and scholarship, by teaching children how to read. It is true that there came a time when the Church opposed people like Galileo, but that only happened when there Galileos. The existence of Galileo and his confreres was in substantial part due to the cultivation by the Church of humanistic values. From the perspective of today, it appears that the Church did not hinder Galileo & co. much -- science advanced despite the Church's objections.
"Made In China"?
Also, as I recall, this smaller than a shoebox device consists of a series of gears. Where are the 2000 characters they are describing?
Looks like the sextant that I used to shoot stars and sunlines while navigating a Buff!
You are sadly not alone in your unfortunate ignorance of the Middle Ages versus Classical Antiquity. It is true a great deal of knowledge was lost to Western Europe in the centuries during and immediately succeeding Rome's colleges (fifth through eigth). However, by the ninth century and the Carolingian Renaissance, European culture began to regain it's footing and, though it had many other ups and downs in the following centuries, it never reached the depth of governmental chaos and scholarly anemia of the earlier Middle Ages. Far from holding back science, the monasteries of the Church were just about the only places around and the time preserving and eventually building on knowledge, as the societal infrastructure of the Empire collapsed around them. The first incarnation of the Inquisition didn't arise until the thirteenth century to fight the heresy of Catharism and it probably wasn't the Inquisition you're think of: the Spanish Inquisition founded by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in the late fifteenth century, primarily to interrogate forced Jewish converts to Catholicism, in fear that they were continuing to practice Judaism.
Always be skeptical of the nonsense on boob tube. Often the so-called "educational" programming is the worst of the lot. Like the news media, it claims to be informative, but it's credibility is undercut by the biases of the insular bubble-dwelling elites who create it. And there's probably for misinformation of the Medieval period of history than any other, coming to you direct from centuries of anti-Catholic propaganda curtesy of early Protestants, Puritans, secular Enlightenment rationalists, socialists, liberals etc. etc. etc.
It's all Greek to me.
A few months ago I finished a PhD in Medieval History. You have no idea of what you are talking about.
The Church encouraged "science and math." The Church founded the first universities, was a leader in astronomy (had to know when Easter was to be scheduled!), etc.
You need to read:
"The Sun in the Church by J.L. Heilbron is a provocative work of scholarship that challenges long-held views of the relationship between science and Christianity. Heilbron's main point is simple enough: "The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and, probably, all other, institutions." Despite the persecution of Galileo, Heilbron notes, the Church actively supported mathematical and astronomical research--often designing cathedrals that could also function as observatories--in order to set the precise date of Easter (a crucial endeavor for maintaining the unity of the Church). Heilbron's fluid, engaging style brings his detailed reconstructions of 16th- and 17th-century Church politics to life. And his argument that scientific knowledge was deemed both morally neutral and politically useful during the Reformation and beyond yields an unusually interesting, complex, and human understanding of Catholicism in the early Modern period. --Michael Joseph Gross"
Thanks. Good read.
Not just science but math, too? Wow.
A few years ago, John Gleave, an orrery maker based in the United Kingdom, decided to construct a working replica of the original mechanism.
www.grand-illusions.com/ antikyth.htm
Heh... heh... I'll add it to the catalog, but no ping. Thanks for pointing me here.
There's an explanation here:
Were Greeks 1,400 years ahead of their time?
The Scotsman | June 7, 2006 | EBEN HARRELL
Posted on 06/07/2006 6:58:41 PM EDT by aculeus
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1645217/posts
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