Antikythera: A 2,000-year-old Greek computer comes back to life
Antikythera Reborn – The Hackers of Ancient Greece
The Ancient Computer of Antikythera, as the Princeton professor Derek de Solla Price called it a few decades ago, was discovered in 1901. The discovery occurred as a part of the first major event of what we today call underwater archaeology, and it all started with the discovery of a Greek shipwreck off the island Antikythera, in between the southern tip of the Peleponnes and the Western end of Crete.
To watch a working model of the ancient clockwork device that some call the world's first computer… …
From WikiPedia:
The mechanism is the oldest known complex scientific calculator. It contains many gears, and is sometimes called the first analog computer, although others consider it likely that that it had a number of predecessors. It appears to be constructed upon theories of astronomy and mathematics developed by Greek astronomers and it is estimated that it was made around 150 to 100 BC…
The device is remarkable for the level of miniaturization and for the complexity of its parts, which is comparable to that of 18th century clocks. It has over 30 gears, although Michael Wright (see below) has suggested as many as 72 gears, with teeth formed through equilateral triangles. When a date was entered via a crank (now lost), the mechanism calculated the position of the Sun, Moon, or other astronomical information such as the location of other planets. Since the purpose was to position astronomical bodies with respect to the celestial sphere, with reference to the observer's position on the surface of the earth, the device was based on the geocentric model.[10]
The mechanism has three main dials, one on the front, and two on the back. The front dial has two concentric scales. The outer ring is marked off with the days of the 365-day Egyptian calendar, or the Sothic year, based on the Sothic cycle. Inside this, there is a second dial marked with the Greek signs of the Zodiac and divided into degrees. The calendar dial can be moved to compensate for the effect of the extra quarter day in the year (there are 365.2422 days per year) by turning the scale backwards one day every four years. Note that the Julian calendar, the first calendar of the region to contain leap years, was not introduced until about 46 BC, up to a century after the device was said to have been built (and the leap year was implemented with errors until the early first century).
Good post Robert. 🙂
…and there is nothing new under the sun…–That guy who wrote Ecclesiastes, about 3 thousand years agoWhat’s the matter with kids today?–Plato, as quoted in popular 50’s musical, Bye Bye Birdie