Ancient Greek computer - Antikythera Mechanism

[akritas]

Scientists have finally demystified the incredible workings of a 2,000-year-old astronomical calculator built by ancient Greeks.

Pieces of the ancient calculating machine were discovered by sponge divers exploring the remains of an ancient shipwreck off the tiny island of Antikythera in 1900. For decades, scientists have been trying to figure out how the device's 80 fragmented pieces fit together and unlock its workings.





Previous reconstructions suggested the Antikythera Mechanism was about the size of a shoebox, with dials on the outside and a complex assembly of bronze gear wheels within. By winding a knob on its side, the positions of the sun, Moon, Mercury and Venus could be determined for any chosen date. Newly revealed inscriptions also appear to confirm previous speculations that the device could also calculate the positions of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn—the other planets known at the time.

The device was made in about 150-100BC, according to analysis of Greek inscriptions on its surface. It may have come from the island of Rhodes, the home of Hipparchus, an ancient astronomer who calculated the moon's orbit.
The team reconstructed the instrument's mechanism with help from three-dimensional X-ray computer tomography desig-ned by X-Tek, a British company, to detect flaws in turbine blades.



High-resolution surface imaging technology, produced by Hewlett-Packard of the US, had made it possible to read inscriptions on more of the fragments - "apparently part of a manual on operating the calculator", Dr Freeth said.

more read in
http://portal.kathimerini.gr/4dcgi/_...11/2006_174506
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/fa440f7e-801...0779e2340.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.../ugreek129.xml
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/...ntgreekmachine

[Flipper]

Funny coincidence...I featured one of its gears in my latest audio work. I've been watching closely the research made for it the past 6 years. It is nice that HP invested so much money for the research and promotes it as the worlds first computer.

[akritas]

In my opinion Antikythera Mechanism and Faistos Disk were the most complicate devices , and this show how intelligents were the ancient civilizations.With the latter just I am show that everything is not made of from Greeks.The Antikythera Mechanism uses also Egyptian and maybe Babylonian scientists data in order the Greeks finally developed this amazing machine.

[Orphic_Hymn]

Found this recreation of it:



and the full sized image HERE

[preston]

I get a “kick” out of life these days when I challenge foreigners by saying to them :
“Everything under this Sun has started in Greece by Greeks.” ..and off course after having seen the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” the laugh and say…”Yes we know”…lol…but the funniest thing is that, although we all laugh at it …the truth is that everything is Greek! Mathematics, Christianity, Medicine, Spirituality, Globalisation, Capitalism, Evolutionism, Revolutions,….shit…we even created Scotland !!!
Axaxaxaxaxa…I suggest we all contribute more of this very interesting topic and all other similar ones, and answer questions to the unbelivers!!

[akritas]

Below is picture as publish today from Bhma newspaper and show the 82 pieces of the mechanism as founded 100 years ago in the sea

[Boreas]

Secrets of Antikythera Mechanism, world's oldest calculating machine, revealed
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
Last Updated: 6:01pm BST 30/07/2008

The secrets of the worlds oldest calculating machine are revealed today, showing that it had dials to mark the timing of eclipses and the Olympic games.

Ever since the spectacular bronze device was salvaged from a shipwreck after its discovery in 1900 many have speculated about the uses of the mechanical calculator which was constructed long before the birth of Christ and was one of the wonders of the ancient world.

The dictionary sized crumbly lump containing corroded fragments of what is now known to be a marvellous hand cranked machine is known as the 'Antikythera Mechanism' because it was discovered near the tiny island of Antikythera, between Crete and mainland Greece.

"We knew that this 2,100 year-old ancient Greek mechanism calculated complex cycles of mathematical astronomy. It really surprised us to discover that it also showed the four-year cycle of ancient Greek games," reports Dr Tony Freeth of Images First, a TV company, and three academic colleagues today in the journal Nature.

"The Antikythera Mechanism is of crucial importance for the history of science and technology," he adds. " It tells us of a revolution in human thought in ancient Greece - the earliest known example of a machine for making calculations, of a machine for predicting the future."

advertisementThe first clues that suggested a link with Greek games came when the word 'NEMEA' was read by the team near a small subsidiary dial.

This was a reference to the site of the Nemean Games, one of the prominent 'crown' games, which were part of a four year cycle that climaxed with the Olympic Games, the most ancient and prestigious of all.

Other names followed, 'ISTHMIA' for the games at Corinth, 'PYTHIA' for the games at Delphi and finally the hard-to-read 'OLYMPIA' for the Olympics.

"The ancient Greeks could easily work out when to stage the Olympic Games without the Antikythera Mechanism - they simply happened every four years as they do now," Dr Freeth tells the Telegraph.

"So, it was a surprise to find this very simple dial represented on this highly sophisticated mechanism. The inclusion of the Olympiad Dial says more about the central cultural importance of the Games than about their advanced technology."

After Greek sponge divers found the wreck of a 1st Century BC Roman merchant vessel, the National Archaeological Museum in Athens recovered the mechanism, then a calcified lump which turned out to be an agglomeration of bronze gearwheels, dials and inscriptions that has puzzled and amazed scientists ever since. It was probably brought to the surface in one piece but is now in 82 fragments.

Working with Dr John Steele of Durham University, and Yanis Bitsakis of Athens University in Greece, the team used a three dimensional X ray technique to read all the month names on a sophisticated 19-year calendar on the back of the mechanism, which was not possible a year or two ago.

"We have been able to read inscriptions inside the mechanism that had not been read/deciphered before, and the results have been a revelation," said Mr Bitsakis. "The inscriptions are like an 'Instruction Manual', telling the user the underlying way the machine worked. We are still reading inscriptions thanks to further data processing with more powerful machines."

"The mechanism is full of surprises," says Prof Alexander Jones, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, "and the latest revelations for the first time establish its cultural origin."

The team believes this marvel may have been made in Syracuse in Sicily. "People may rush to make a link with the great scientist, Archimedes, who lived in Syracuse and died there in 212 BC." says Prof Jones, "But the mechanism itself was almost certainly made many decades after he died and the most we can say is that there is a possible link with a heritage of scientific instruments that might have originated with Archimedes."

Earlier work on the mechanism, which dates to around 150 to 100 BC, showed it displays the date, positions of the Sun and Moon (including its variable motion), the phase of the Moon, a complex 19-year calendar and sophisticated eclipse prediction dials.

"It is more complex than any other known device for the next 1,000 years," says leading astronomer, Prof Mike Edmunds of Cardiff University, who set up the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, a major international collaboration.

"It is as important for the history of science and technology as the Acropolis is for architecture," adds Prof John Seiradakis of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

The Antikythera Mechanism is on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. An exhibition discussing the instrument and the history of research opens at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science in Cambridge.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/mai...scicalc130.xml

[pankration]

I just came across the story on Yahoo! I'm glad my friends here have already picked up on it and come up with such good pictures. The more I read about the achievements and forward thinking of the ancient Greeks the more I'm starting to think that we were either a super sub-species of homo sapiens or we were....ALIENS!