30/11/2006 12:55:47 PM
Scientists have unlocked the secret of an ancient device recovered from a Roman shipwreck, saying the complex mechanism was used to track the movements of the stars and moon.


CBC News


A fragment of the 2,100-year-old Antikythera Mechanism, believed to be the earliest surviving mechanical computing device, is seen at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens on Thursday.
(Thanassis Stavrakis/Associated Press)


The machine, believed to be about 2,000 years old, was discovered in 1901 on a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera and embedded in rock. The strange wheel-like device with complex gears had baffled researchers attempting to determine its purpose.

But a recent study in the journal Nature has revealed the device, known as the Antikythera Mechanism, was actually a complex means of tracking the movements of astronomical bodies for use in navigation.

A team of researchers led by Mike Edmunds and Tony Freeth at Cardiff University in Wales used X-rays to peer through the deposits covering the mechanism, to uncover ancient script and clues on how the mechanism worked.

"This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind," said Edmunds in announcing the results. "The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. Whoever has done this has done it extremely well."

The researchers will be releasing their full findings of what they are regarding as a 2,000-year-old computer at a two-day international conference in Athens on Thursday and Friday.

Created between 150 BC and 100 BC, the mechanism contained 37 gear wheels in a case of wood and bronze in a contraption that resembled a clock. The gear wheels were designed to track the movements of the sun and moon, and even track eclipses and the irregular orbit of the moon. It may also have been able to follow some of the planets.

Also astonishing is the machine's use of a differential gear, a device known to have been used in the 17th century but often speculated to have been invented years earlier.

The device is an arrangement of gears that permits the rotation of two shafts at different speeds. It is most commonly associated in modern usage with automobiles, which use a differential gear on their rear axle to allow different rates of wheel rotation on curves. The intricacy of the device is also comparable to that of 18th-century clocks.

'State of the art in astronomy'

"I'm very surprised to find a mechanical representation of this," Alexander Jones, an astronomy historian who works at the University of Toronto, told Nature.

Jones predicts the mechanism will have a profound impact on our view of the history of science.

"This was absolutely state of the art in astronomy at the time."

The greater question puzzling scientists is how such a useful device could have disappeared entirely from the archeological record, so much so that no record of anything as complex appears for another 1,000 years. One explanation is that the recycling of bronze in ancient times melted down older versions and caused any archeological record to disappear.

But as London Science Museum's curator, Michael Wright, told Nature in a subsequent article, a more likely possibility is that the device or plans of the device migrated in some form to the Muslim world after the fall of Rome, and reappeared years later in Europe.

"I find it as easy to believe that this technology survived unrecorded, as to believe that it was reinvented in so similar a form," said Wright.

Edmunds and Freeth worked alongside researchers from universities of Athens and Thessaloniki and the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, where the more than 80 pieces of the mechanism are being held in precisely controlled conditions.

Italians changed the world

so, if this device its self is around 2000 years old, then the technology for it to be created would have to be much older than the device it's self, right?

Coudn't they recover the monitor screen?

Muse should totally get this.

It's gotta be better than her piece of crap computer:

http://www.prince.org/msg/100/210242

applekisses said:

they go their ideas from the Egyptians

SammiJ said:

its funny, i just went to a lecture yesterday on campus about preserving antiquity, and this wasn't mentioned
...it was probably because the lecture was centred around the renaissance... but still!

nice!

SammiJ said:

& the greeks

SpisaRibb said:

NDRU said:

yeah that too!
friggen romans and their "copies" of great greek statues

this really needs some input from ED.

SammiJ said:

SammiJ said:

But their own style did develop... I just did a presentation on this for school.

Wondering if SammiJ has a problem with the Italian people...

applekisses said:

i'm sure she doesn't. Simply pointing out the misconcept that art and sciences, civilization for that matter, were started in rome. When infact they were stolen from ancient Kemtitian civilization. Just facts.

SpisaRibb said:

Who said that?

SpisaRibb said:

that's pretty much it
let's not turn this into some kind of racial debate, because it truly isn't. it's just that rome got their ideas from previous civilzations, that' all

did it have a "ctrl-apple-reset" function on it?

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

SammiJ said:

Why such anger, then?

applekisses said:

this --> is an emoticon that overemphasizes the anger that doesn't really exist in the post...
i wasn't angry at any point in the thread...
when i'm actually mad/annoyed, i don't tend to use emoticons...
i'm not sure where you're seeing my anger..
[Edited 12/4/06 13:40pm]

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

And hieroglyphics are really early emoticons.

applekisses said:

2the9s said:

SammiJ said:

It was in the emoticons...I tend to use them to clarify how I'm feeling...so that's what I was reading from yours.

applekisses said:

well, just so you know, i don't use them in that way... if my posts are animated, i'm generally in a good mood
it's very rare that i'll post feeling angry and actually use emoticons.

applekisses said:

some people, in fact many orgers use them in a sarcastic manner. In case you didn't know.

SpisaRibb said:

Oh, I know that, silly! (But, thanks for reminding me )

why isn't this in P& R for ED to comment on about how God created computers and didn't evolve from this box