Posted on 11/29/2006 11:17:09 AM PST by freedom44
LONDON (Reuters) - An ancient astronomical calculator made at the end of the 2nd century BC was amazingly accurate and more complex than any instrument for the next 1,000 years, scientists said on Wednesday.
The Antikythera Mechanism is the earliest known device to contain an intricate set of gear wheels. It was retrieved from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901 but until now what it was used for has been a mystery.
Although the remains are fragmented in 82 brass pieces, scientists from Britain, Greece and the United States have reconstructed a model of it using high-resolution X-ray tomography. They believe their findings could force a rethink of the technological potential of the ancient Greeks.
"It could be described as the first known calculator," said Professor Mike Edmunds, a professor of astrophysics at Cardiff University in Wales.
"Our recent work has applied very modern techniques that we believe have now revealed what its actual functions were."
STAGGERINGLY SOPHISTICATED
The calculator could add, multiply, divide and subtract. It was also able to align the number of lunar months with years and display where the sun and the moon were in the zodiac.
Edmunds and his colleagues discovered it had a dial that predicted when there was a likely to be a lunar or solar eclipse. It also took into account the elliptical orbit of the moon.
"The actual astronomy is perfect for the period," Edmunds told Reuters.
"What is extraordinary about the thing is that they were able to make such a sophisticated technological device and to be able to put that into metal," he added.
The model of the calculator shows 37 gear wheels housed in a wooden case with inscriptions on the cover that related to the planetary movements.
Francois Charette, of the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, said the findings, reported in the journal Nature, provide a wealth of data for future research.
"Newly deciphered inscriptions that relate to the planetary movements make it plausible that the mechanism originally also had gearings to predict the motion of the planets," he said in a commentary.
Edmunds described the instrument as unique, saying there is nothing like it in the history of astronomy. Similar complicated mechanisms were not been seen until the appearance of medieval cathedral clocks much later.
"What was not quite so apparent before was quite how beautifully designed this was," he said. "That beauty of design in this mechanical thing forces you to say 'Well gosh, if they can do that what else could they do?"'
textbooks refer to babbage's differential machine, or even the eniac as the world's first computer. When I beg to differ, I cite the Antekythera (or however ya spell ti) mechanism. opens a few eyes as to just how smart we really can be.
ENIAC and Babbage's analytic engine (quite different from his differential engine) were programmable. Antikythera is not.
It was during the Dark Ages that Islam was concocted and conquered most of the ancient world.
exactly, and coin operated fortune telling machines, and mechanical singing birds...
the lesson here is that all this technology was lost (Galen did eye and brain surgery in ancient Rome, for example) when civilization appeases barbarians instead of agressively fighting them. Even Rome's high level of sophistication couldn't save it in the end.
and the world lost - a thousand years of darkness because of a losing strategy.
This article mentions they accounted for the ELIPTICAL ORBIT OF THE MOON!
This beats Kepler!
It just adds to the fact that the arab world pretty much was a middle man book seller and not much more than that.
Hey, I got one of those.
you make a point, but the AK's programmign is in it's very design - like a telephone - you can't program it, it's design is it's program - a single purpose unit.
It would be nice if someone with the resources, a university, perhaps, would build a working device from the original.
LOL~!
I fgured that computer museum's would have model kits of the AK, but so far they don't seem to. I'd love to show one to my students in real life.
Those years weren't lost. Plenty of good work was done during that time. It was during the Middle Ages that the church invented, for all practical purposes, the modern university.
Reverse Phoenician Notation?
We're about to lose another 1000...
Very true!
(however if you ask some arabs, I believe there is a "continuously in use" arab university in morroco. 600- 500 or so years. It is note worthy because it used Adobe in its constructions I believe. I hear they might finally be updating the classes after all these centuries)
Interesting.
Bush's fault! (Hey, it's a Reuters story)
Hmmm. Oxford's got that beat...it's been in existence since the 12th century. Heck, even Harvard's over 350, and that's a new-world institution, fer cryin' out loud.
Have this university's alumni accomplished anything of note?
That is so neat. I want one to play with.
Wow, they even had plexiglass back then? ;o)
"the church invented, for all practical purposes, the modern university"
The root of Marxism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, and hedonism--academia. You blame it on the church, do you!?
;>)
Hank
Such as Cornell, Brown, Columbia, etc ... where liberals are mass produced.
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