"the device was found on the sea bed near the Greek island of Antikythera"
So they found it near an island of the same name? What are the odds. This is why I don't trust official histories
Boffins decipher manual for 2,000-year-old Ancient Greek computer
Scientists have examined hitherto-obscure inscriptions on the Antikythera Mechanism, a first century BC apparatus comprised of interlocking gears, and now believe the device could predict eclipses and the motion of the planets. The Antikythera Mechanism is a scientific and archaeological marvel, because nothing else like it …
-
-
-
-
Thursday 16th June 2016 20:28 GMT fidodogbreath
Re: Boffins decipher manual for 2,000-year-old Ancient Greek computer
"Η επιβίωση των Angry Birds είναι σε κίνδυνο. Πιάτο έξω εκδίκηση από τους άπληστους χοίρων που έκλεψαν τα αυγά τους."
The survival of the Angry Birds is at stake. Dish out revenge on the greedy pigs who stole their eggs.
-
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 18:46 GMT asdf
Three body problem
From what I understand we think the machine was incredibly well, well machined and intricate but remember hearing something like the machine operation is more accurate than the math underlining it, with the net effect the device is often inaccurate but not due to mechanical reasons or tolerances. A case of the theoretical not keeping up with the experimental. I guess not a surprise as there would be no Mr. Newton for another millennium and a half plus.
-
-
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 12:25 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Does it start with
While is true Romans didn't care much about not applied sciences, it also true they never did much to hinder them in Greece, Egypt and other countries. Actually Julius Caesar and other leaders used Hellenistic scientist whenever they needed. In Rome, Greeks were highly regarded in professions like medicine, and not only. Romans did care about technological progress as long as it was useful for their aims. Roman engineering was fairly advanced.
Actually, it was the "new" monotheistic religions, Christianity first and Islam later, which, having that strange idea of the "holy book where everything true is written from god's advice, and everything not written is false, dangerous an demoniac" started to destroy everything that could "prove" the book was "false" (you still find some in US and Middle East...)
Later both, once power was conquered, understood some sciences could also be useful (as long as carefully controlled to avoid they could used against the power itself), but just after doing a lot of damage.
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 13:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Bah!
"Less portable, of course, but that can be said about anything made in Britain."
Reminds me of a cartoon strip in the 1970s**. Probably "B.C." which was set in the Stone Age - and a recurring*** theme was about useless inventions like "the wheel".
One invention was a neat device for your wrist which presaged the current smart watches. As the inventor then pointed out - the extremely large battery was also necessary.
** looking up an explanatory link - it is a surprise to find the cartoons are still running.
http://johnhartstudios.com/bc/
*** another theme was dictionary definitions like:
"Recursion" - see "recursion".
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 18:36 GMT VinceH
Re: Old news
"I remember watching a documentary some years ago about this."
The Two Thousand Year Old Computer perchance? An excellent documentary - the sort of thing that makes the licence fee worthwhile.
Edit: While looking for the lego version on YouTube, I found the documentary itself there.
-
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 12:58 GMT allthecoolshortnamesweretaken
"The Antikythera Mechanism is a scientific and archaeological marvel, because nothing like it has ever been found. A few classical sources mention geared devices, but the Mechanism is the only one to survive from antiquity."
That's because at that time the 'Amalgated Union of Professional Thinkers'* strongly opposed the idea of their work being done by machines eventually. So they tried to nip these worrying tendencies in the bud and had the ship sunk and all records destroyed.
* If both my sources and the translation I have are correct. Attic Greek has never been my strong suit. And my sources are a bit dodgy.
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 14:47 GMT roytrubshaw
"That's because at that time the 'Amalgated Union of Professional Thinkers'* strongly opposed the idea of their work being done by machines eventually."
So was there a sudden increase in wandering academic pundits at about this time?
Was the mechanism designed to find the answer* or the question**?
(Oh all right *42, **"What do you get if you multiply six by nine?")
-
-
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 14:12 GMT A Ghost
The existence of the Antikythera mechanism really calls into question what we know about the ancient world, and makes you wonder just how much knowledge was lost.
From your second link. As I was saying in my other comment.
If the minds that created this (not the watch, the original mechanism) had passed this knowledge on and nurtured it through the centuries, would we have had to wait so long for a Babbage to come along?
And as I understand it, his first invention was just a glorified calculator (please correct me if I'm wrong), which seems so 'brute-force'. But the Antikythera mechanism displays such complexity abstracted down to such simplicity (if you knew how to work it), that they must have had some pretty good calculating devices to get the original data in the first place. Would an abacus have been sufficient?
Never mind what it does, how the hell did they 'work out' how to get it to do what it does (did)? I'm talking about the original 'manufacturers'.
Sorry, didn't explain that very well - bit scramble brained today.
Thanks for the link though.
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 17:26 GMT energystar
"...and nurtured it through the centuries..."
"If the minds that created this ... had passed this knowledge on and nurtured it through the centuries, would we have had to wait so long for a Babbage to come along?"
As for me, not the minimal interest on 'nurturing' dusted patents about to go public domain. Not competitive anymore. So, what has changed?
-
Thursday 16th June 2016 11:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
In ancient times (and even not so ancient), when patents did not exist, or were difficult to enforce (maybe an emperor cold grant you some monopoly, but you'd need to be a good friend of him...), often craftsmen, artists, and even "scientists" keep their most advanced knowledge highly secret, passing them down to selected disciples only, and only when really needed. If something bad happened before, the knowledge could go lost forever.
What happened to the Antikythera Machine creators?
-
Thursday 16th June 2016 18:50 GMT A Ghost
Ah yes, forgot about that. Silly me.
You are quite right.
Knowledge was hoarded and used as currency, then, as it is now. Let's not even get into patents.
Like I said, I'm an old romantic.
Let me rephrase the question slightly: How much further could we all be along as humans, if humans through the ages had decided to share their knowledge instead of hoarding it?
Of course, then there is little personal gain, and less political gain for the would be masters of the universe.
It must have been quite a buzz knowing there was about to be a total eclipse of the Sun the next week, and telling all your uneducated peasants that you were a god and could predict the future. Your scientists being under pain of death to keep their big traps shut, and just keep enjoying the grapes and wine and young nubile peasants (so I guess it wasn't all bad for them).
The people, however.
As for the AM creators? Who knows. So much knowledge of the knowledge, lost . You would think we would have set up a mechanism ourselves for passing on the knowledge, and the knowledge of the knowledge.
But alas, just like Ozymandias, look on my works ye mighty and despair.
-
Thursday 16th June 2016 20:45 GMT fidodogbreath
What happened to the Antikythera Machine creators?
According to Wikipedia, Antikythera was bought out by Το Εργοστάσιο Σοκολάτας (Factorius Chocolatus) in 103 BCE. Their intention was to position Antikythera's Mechanism line as a high-end reference design for gear-driven advertising delivery and user tracking. However, Factorius Chocolatus shut down Antikythera in 102 BCE and sold its remaining Mechanism assets to the Tang Dynasty at a substantial loss.
-
-
-
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 13:54 GMT A Ghost
I often wonder
If there is some kind of old lost technology in the form of a computer.
An abacus is a certain type of computer, of course, but thinking more along the lines of mechanisms such as this.
What other stuff lies out there, buried at the bottom of the ocean? Or perhaps covered by vines deep in the Amazonian forest...
I'm a romantic, I know, but still, I'd bet there is something out there that would blow people's minds.
This thing though is pretty mind-blowing by itself, not least the fact that they found the thing, then worked out what it does. It looks like a rusty can of dog-food to me, but I believe them.
I want to believe.
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 15:28 GMT Antron Argaiv
But, seriously...
The comments here are brilliant :-)
I heard about T.A.M. as a young 'un, and at that time, no one knew what it was. To have lived long enough to see its mysteries revealed is a great privilege. To find that it had an operating manual engraved on it (good design...can't lose the manual), AND to have some of that manual decoded...well, that's just the icing on the cake.
Well done, those researchers. Have a couple of pints.
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 16:01 GMT Mike 16
@ A Ghost
In re your comment about "If it had been known to Babbage..." "
-- And as I understand it, his first invention was just a glorified calculator (please correct me if I'm wrong), which seems so 'brute-force'. --
The Difference Engine (far from his first invention, but that's a digression for another time) was both more and less than a Calculator. It could only do one operation (Addition, but of course could subtract by complement addition), but had 6 or 7 (depending on version) accumulators to do that addition. Using the previously known method for calculating mathematical tables, it served a particular purpose.
Yet a general one. Vary the initial input and get a different table.
More to the point to contrast with the Antikythera Mechanism, the DE was Digital, not Analog. That is, the "locks" served to re-quantize the state of the machine after each step of computation. The advantage of digital technology is that it allows reliable systems to be built from less-than-perfect parts. The Industrial Revolution was enabling the production of copious amounts of less-than-perfect parts, so coming up with a way to use them for ever more complicated mechanism was important.
Without that notion (not that Babbage was the only one to think of it. I'm not doing Connections here) we would be unable to enlist the work of hordes of truly funky looking (in an electron microscope) transistors in the noble yet daunting task of displaying glorious 4K cat videos.
-
Thursday 16th June 2016 18:37 GMT A Ghost
Re: @ Mike 16
Thank you for your excellent explanation.
I was musing generally off the top of my head, and not specifically comparing it per se to the DE.
But I get that you understood that also.
I am corrected, educated and enlightened in one fell swoop!
(particularly liked the Digital/Analog erudition)
Cheers.
-
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 16:34 GMT captain_solo
It resembled the Babylonian mechanism, but most technologists felt that since the API had pretty much been re-implemented in a clean room it was an acceptable fair use and not a violation of the copyright granted in Ur. After the Persian empire took over though, they decided to litigate and are appealing all decisions related to the copyright of ancient astronomical calculating mechanisms using gears and asking for damages related to several centuries of lost sales.
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 17:31 GMT Cynic_999
The End is Nigh
It could only "predict" past events correctly, but nevertheless was touted as being an accurate mathematical model of the solar system that provided convincing scientific proof that Man's unnatural activities were the cause of solar eclipses and other frightening astronomical events, so if Man did not stop immediately the World would come to an end within 100 years. Fortunately the Greek government was able to solve the problem by raising taxes, otherwise we would not be here.
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 19:02 GMT Chris G
Weather, or not
A likely reason for the Antikythera to be at the bottom of the sea, could be, having determined the 'clockwork' reliablity of the celestial bodies and their predicted movements via the machine, they went on to asume it could do the weather just as accurately.
" A bloody tempest? It didn't predict that!"
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 19:45 GMT kmac499
Actually it was...
An all singing all dancing very expensive time piece bought by a premier league charioteer. Unfortunately like all sportsmen down the ages, Sporting ability is inversley proprtional to Intellect and once his mates on the tour galley ribbed him about not having a setting for baylon time. He got bored and chucked it over the side..
-
Wednesday 15th June 2016 20:56 GMT MondoMan
Cool gadget
This is a really excellent article, Simon! Great context and a clear description of the many important new conclusions.
One minor clarification: polynomial *texture* mapping is a method to look at the *exterior* of an object by synthesizing images of it taken under different lighting conditions.
-
Thursday 16th June 2016 14:53 GMT David Pollard
Epicycles may be better
Copernicus and Kepler did indeed provide an improved explanation of how and why the planets move as they do. But it's a rather cumbersome task to work out how they will appear seen from Earth at any given time, to predict eclipses or to navigate. Even with an an ephemeris to hand, trig tables and logs it isn't by any means easy to draw a picture of the planets in the sky.
Epicycles, on the other hand can be quite quick and simple; particularly if the model can use integer arithmetic, with a couple of analogue wobbles in appropriate gear wheels. The epicyclic model may not have been the best in terms of explanatory power, but it was certainly the way to go in terms of providing a pragmatic solution to the problems of calculation.
-
Friday 17th June 2016 09:59 GMT lukewarmdog
sabotage
On a state sponsored industrial scale no less.
Having worked up a method to prove, once and for all, that the world rotated around the Sun with Greece as it's central point and having further detailed the theory on the front of the device so that both theory and practice could be observed taking place at the same time, Euroipedes took his device out to sea to a suitable distance to show that the Greek sphere of influence was not affecting the working of the device as had been suggested by certain Roman colleagues. Upon finding out that he was absolutely correct the legionnaire from the Centre for the Furtherance of Roman Interests who was there to observe the experiment, accidentally threw the device and the operator overboard. The Centre has apologized for the accident which occurred when the legionnaire became overexcited and rushed to give Euroipedes a congratulatory back slap. It has now recalled its observer and has declined to help attempt retrieve either the object or its creator due to the sea being unfortunately incredibly deep at the spot they picked for the experiment to take place.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
