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I want a replica!
actually the ancients had an advanced concept of water power and mechanics that awould surprise most people today.
the roman coleseum had a water powered organ, for example.
Reuters is about a year or more late on this story, History Channel covered this a while back.
It also went into the water clocks and other mechanical devices.
Actually the water clock in that special is mostly intact, in athens, near the acropolis.
It is actually quite stagering how much knowlege was delayed due to the dark ages. Imagine where we would be if we did not lose those 1000 years or so.
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I remember seeing this on an episode of the History Channel about a year ago.
In other words, 'twas the Greeks, not the Arabs, who really invented the astrolabe.
It probably used that old fashioned red LED display. And I'll be the memory was severely limited.
Some of the geeks at slashdot actually have Linux running on this thing.
It also had a Lotto number generator, Tip calculator, and could played MP3's if you got the 2 GB expansion mikroSDRam
It would be nice if someone with the resources, a university, perhaps, would build a working device from the original.
Bush's fault! (Hey, it's a Reuters story)
That is so neat. I want one to play with.
I understand that it was invented by Al Gore.
Is it calibrated to be heliocentric? THAT would be cool.
Before the Celts ever arrived in the British Isles (600BC), the people there knew a method by which, they could predict every movement and cycle of the sun and the moon, including eclipses, from any point on earth, with accuracy like only our computers do today.
The method that had to be taught and passed down was very simple.
It starts with a single long stick the exact length of a megalithic yard (2 feet 8.64 inches). It has to be that length.
Begining on the spring equinox
(both morning and evening shadows on a standing stone form a straight line and the shadows of a pair of east [sunrise] and west [sunset] aligned posts coincide both moring and evening,
use the (magalithic yard)stick, standing in the center of a circle, to sight the exact positions of the sunrise and sunset ON THE HORIZON, and mark those positions with stones placed on the circle.
Repeat those steps 30 day later, marking two new positions and then divide the space between each pair of markers into twelve segments, using smaller markers.
Repeat the sunrise and sunset sightings in another 30 days,
then divide the space between the two new markers into eight segments, using smaller stones.
Repeat the sightings in another 30 days, then divide the space between the last two stones into four equal segments with small stones.
Then wait and repeat the process again, beginning on the autumn equinox.
It sounds simple, but it works only because the megalithic yard stick and the method, working together, account for (1)the orbit of the earth around the sun, (2)the inclination of the earth on its axis, (3)the rotation of the earth around the axis and (4) the mass of the earth.
Yet long before Greek geometry, the natives of the British Isles had known of this method, taught it and passed it on for thousands of years (for which the Carbpon-14 dated remnants of these precise calcualtors are strewn across northern Europe).