2000-year-old analogue "Moon computer" described

[BurtWorm]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6191462.stm




By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

The delicate workings at the heart of a 2000-year-old analogue computer have been revealed by scientists.

The Antikythera Mechanism, discovered more than 100 years ago in a Roman shipwreck, was used by ancient Greeks to display astronomical cycles.

Using advanced imaging techniques, an Anglo-Greek team probed the remaining fragments of the complex geared device.

The results, published in the journal Nature, show it could have been used to predict solar and lunar eclipses.

...


However, not all experts agree with the team's interpretation of the mechanism.

Technical complexity

The remains of the device were first discovered in 1902 when archaeologist Valerios Stais noticed a heavily corroded gear wheel amongst artefacts recovered by sponge divers from a sunken Roman cargo ship.

A further 81 fragments have since been found containing a total of 30 hand-cut bronze gears. The largest fragment has 27 cogs.

...

[Swamp Rat]

1. What operating system?

"OS X Socrates?" :D

[ClintonTyree]

3. Must be Windows......

that's why it "crashed". ;)

[malmapus]

4. Windows ME

why it "sank" :D

[Fierce]

2. Beautiful.

nt

[malmapus]

5. Saw a program on it a few months back

The thing is simply amazing, I can't imagine all the knowledge that has been lost that has been recently re-discovered in the last couple centuries.

[warrens]

6. The Maya reputedly had a machine of sorts

I'm fuzzy on details, but it supposedly was a very precise calendar. Down to the second.

[Selatius]

7. Much technology has been lost to history as a result of upheaval and wars and climate disasters.

The Romans could've invented the steam engine if they had more time and imagination. They were reaching that point.

[sofa king]

13. I blame Christianity.

While the details of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria remain in dispute, there is no doubt that Theodosius ordered the destruction of all pagan temples in the Roman Empire, and Theophilus of Alexandria carried out those orders by wrecking the Serapeum, which housed much of the Library's collection.

Whatever contents survived were ever more widely dispersed, divided amongst caliphs and Irish monks, and some volumes (like three quarters of Aristotle's works) were hunted into extinction by Christian zealots. Never again was the knowledge of the ancient world collected in one place or even within easy communication distance; the legs of that giant were forever hamstringed, all in the name of a religion which has never practiced what it so vehemently preaches.

The Christian Romans ran out of time because they voluntarily lobotomized their imagination--and they'll do it again if you give them half a chance.

[Hosnon]

16. I blame worldwide economic collapse.

If the members of a society have to constantly worry about bread and water, they are not going to have the time to be interested in academics.

It could happen again. And if most of our knowledge is stored digitally, the hit will be particularly harsh.

[Selatius]

19. The economy collapsed largely due to government corruption and civil war

When senators and generals enter office to enrich themselves instead of serving the Republic, the Republic's end is close at hand. Rome as a Republic died centuries before, so the people lost much input into how the nation was run. Rome was essentially a rotating dictatorship by the time Jesus lived.

When powerful patrician families and generals are the only ones who decide the laws, aid for people is slashed in favor of pork spending and spending on waging war, usually to destroy rivals. This generally translates into a stagnating economy. Towards the end, nobody wanted to serve in the military anymore (Who wants to fight a rich man's war?), and nobody really felt loyal to a corrupt government in Rome. On top of that, many legions were wasted in struggles for power, and this allowed many Germanic tribes to invade the countryside and pillage everything before setting up their kingdoms in the provinces of Rome.

The Dark Age had arrived, and much knowledge and technology was lost. A modern equivalent would be watching the US turn into a dictatorship before finally degenerating into warlordism. If you want to see an example of warlordism, just study Afghanistan or current Iraq. Of course, back then they didn't call themselves warlords. They called themselves princes and kings instead.

[Odin2005]

21. Excellent post.

British historian A. J. Toynbee apropriately discribed "Universal States" like Rome as the death shroud of a civilization.

[BurtWorm]

26. I agree with Odin.

:toast:

Excellent post.

[Odin2005]

20. Some Greek guy named Heiro actually did make a primitive steam engine.

His invention was ignored because Graeco-Roman society was based on slavery and powerful landowners. The reason Graeco-Roman society (as well as China) never had an industrial revolution was that the civilization's societal and economic structure worked against it from happening.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. It was a toy, wasn't it?

http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/thermo/thermo.html#hero

I don't think there's any evidence he proposed getting useful work out of it.

[Odin2005]

28. The story I've heard is that rulers weren't interested in the machine.

Supposedly one ruler told him "if we use this thing when what will all the slaves do"? Slavery was so thoroughly intrenched in Graeco-Roman society that people couldn't imagine a world without it, they thought slavery was part of that natural order of things. Another problem hampering industrialization was the lack of an euntrepeneurial/comercial-based mindset among the ruling elites.

[Minnesota_Lib]

8. Was it internet ready?

[Uncle Joe]

9. Wait a minute, that looks like my computer, only mine is not as modern. n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. Looks like the machines

they have in Myst and Riven.

[roguevalley]

11. imagine the world getting technology like this 2000 years ago and .

applying it to work and inventions. I wonder what would have happened to us all.

[Ignacio Upton]

22. The Greeks and Romans certainly had the potential to launch an Industrial Revolution

If the Athenians, Hellenistic-era Greeks, or the Romans had done this, then you would see an empire, but not one similar to 19th century Britain.

[tridim]

12. Does it get the Internets?

[Octafish]

14. Stonehenge was also used to predict eclipses...

...according to Gerald S. Hawkins.

Like the Antikythera box, it must have scared the heck out of the locals.

[Liberal In Texas]

15. Looks an awful lot like this:

hmmm.......

[symbolman]

17. It's a freakin

IPod.. got the wheel and everything, now where to plug it in.. Hmmm.. :)

[symbolman]

18. If you look into this thing some more

You find out that THIS baby is the Mother of Technology.. previously tho Archimedes had made Planetariums far later, it was all passed on the Islam, who them passed it back later to Europe, the stuff of clockmakers..

A lot of people might not realize this, but Islam, Persia, etc was passing on Civilization to the Europeans back when we STUNK, Didn't KNOW what Money was (other than gold coins, but not paper money), etc, etc.. And so we've gone over with a cowboy wannabe and destroyed the Cradle of Civilization.. I'm so proud. Imagine what got lost in all that looting, just like Alexander the Great's Library..

They had a FUCKING COMPUTER here, right here in this device, they could have build ANYTHING, not to mention that in Greece they were speaking of MOLECULES as well. Mind Blowing, we got set back a good 10,000 years by the Christians who tracked down and BURNED every damn book they could find.

I have a hard time forgiving them for that.

THIS Mechanism IS the EVE of Techology, amazing.

Thanks for posting this, curiously enough I was just talking about this the other day.. but couldn't remember what it was named. I'd thought that at some point I'd read about a 'fossilized' gear that had freaked everyone out, now I know that THIS is what I was remembering :)

[BurtWorm]

23. Interesting observations, symbolman.

I've been reading The Closing of the Western Mind, by Charles Freeman which covers a lot of this territory.

[symbolman]

24. Two things I find endlessly facsinating

The Dark ages and the Black Plague..

I guess that covers the Mind, the Body, and the Politics of mankind pretty well, religions too.. Like during the Black Plague some folks were throwing GOLD and anything of value over the walls of the churches (who'd locked everyone OUT) hoping for HELP, but those piles of treasure just sat there rotting, no one wanted to touch them..

I sure hope we don't have another dark age, I thought it might happen when the Oil People took over again and tried to revert to the Robber Baron days :)

I'll have to read that, thanks!

[BurtWorm]

25. That's quite a potent image!

The priests leaving gold untouched for fear of getting infected... A creative person could do a lot with that in any medium. Very intriguing.

:think: