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Thats what I was thinking.

Now if anyone of you want to give me a hand; Ive got to move one of the stones in the Aubrey holes at Stonehenge.

...Its very important, for the predicting of lunar eclipses.

What do you mean its outmoded these days and there versions that you can carry about? Talk about minaturisation, huh!
 
Famed Roman shipwreck reveals more secrets

Marine archaeologists report they have uncovered new secrets of an ancient Roman shipwreck famed for yielding an amazingly sophisticated astronomical calculator. An international survey team says the ship is twice as long as originally thought and contains many more calcified objects amid the ship's lost cargo that hint at new discoveries.

At the Archaeological Institute of America meeting Friday in Seattle, marine archaeologist Brendan Foley of the Woods Hole (Mass.) Oceanographic Institution, will report on the first survey of Greece's famed Antikythera island shipwreck since 1976. The ancient Roman shipwreck was lost off the Greek coast around 67 BC,filled with statues and the famed astronomical clock.

"The ship was huge for ancient times," Foley says. "Divers a century ago just couldn't conduct this kind of survey but we were surprised when we realized how big it was."

Completed in October by a small team of divers, the survey traversed the island and the wreck site, perched on a steep undersea slope some 150 to 230 feet deep in the Mediterranean Sea.

The October survey shows the ship was more than 160 feet long, twice as long as expected. Salvaged by the Greek navy and skin divers in 1901, its stern perched too deep for its original skin-diver discoverers to find.

The wreck is best known for yielding a bronze astronomical calculator, the "Antikythera Mechanism" widely seen as the most complex device known from antiquity, along with dozens of marble and bronze statues. The mechanism apparently used 37 gear wheels, a technology reinvented a millennium later, to create a lunar calendar and predict the motion of the planets, which was important knowledge for casting horoscopes and planning festivals in the superstitious ancient world.

A lead anchor recovered in a stowed position in the new survey shows that the ship likely sank unexpectedly when "a storm blew it against an underwater cliff," says marine archaeologist Theotokis Theodoulou of Greece's Ephorate (Department) of Underwater Antiquities. "It seems to have settled facing backwards with its stern (rear) at the deepest point," he says.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013 ... y/1804353/
 
EnolaGaia said:
The mechanism was discovered / recovered during 1900 - 1901.

The use of the term 'computer' to mean 'a person who performs calculations' dates back at least as far as the 1600's.

The OED indicates that by the end of the 19th century 'computer' was used to mean 'a machine or mechanical means for performing calculation'.

The currently common meaning dates back only as far as the mid-1940's.

I was going to ask then, what did Babbage call his calculation devices, and a quick search shows, he called them Difference Engines, even though they were directly designed to replace the (Human) Computers.
 
Waylander28 said:
EnolaGaia said:
The mechanism was discovered / recovered during 1900 - 1901.

The use of the term 'computer' to mean 'a person who performs calculations' dates back at least as far as the 1600's.

The OED indicates that by the end of the 19th century 'computer' was used to mean 'a machine or mechanical means for performing calculation'.

The currently common meaning dates back only as far as the mid-1940's.
I was going to ask then, what did Babbage call his calculation devices, and a quick search shows, he called them Difference Engines, even though they were directly designed to replace the (Human) Computers.
But after his experiments with Difference Engines, he..
..started designing a different, more complex machine called the Analytical Engine. The engine is not a single physical machine but a succession of designs that he tinkered with until his death in 1871. The main difference between the two engines is that the Analytical Engine could be programmed using punched cards. He realised that programs could be put on these cards so the designer had only to create the program initially and then put the cards in the machine and let it run.

The analytical engine would have used loops of Jacquard's punched cards to control a mechanical calculator, which could formulate results based on the results of preceding computations. This machine was also intended to employ several features subsequently used in modern computers, including sequential control, branching and looping and would have been the first mechanical device to be Turing-complete.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ba ... cal_Engine
His Analytical Engine, if completed, would have been the mechanical forerunner of the electronic computer.
 
Famed Roman Shipwreck Could Be Two

A dive to the undersea cliff where a famous Roman shipwreck rests has turned up either evidence that the wreck is enormous — or a suggestion that, not one, but two sunken ships are resting off the Greek island of Antikythera.

"Either way, it's an exciting result," said study researcher Brendan Foley, an archaeologist at Woods Hold Oceanographic Institution who presented the findings here today (Jan. 4) at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.

The Antikythera wreck is famed for the massive number of artifacts pulled from the site over the past century. First discovered in the early 1900s by local sponge divers, the wreck is most famous for the Antikythera mechanism, a complex bronze gear device used to calculate astronomical positions (and perhaps the timing of the Olympic games). Numerous bronze and marble statues, jars and figurines have also been pulled from the wreck. The ship went down in the first century B.C.

http://www.livescience.com/26009-antiky ... k-two.html
 
An ancient Greek astronomical puzzle now has another piece in place.
The New York Times reported the new evidence today in a story about research by James Evans, professor of physics at University of Puget Sound, and Christián Carman, history of science professor at University of Quilmes, Argentina.

The two researchers published a paper advancing our understanding of the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient Greek mechanism that modeled the known universe of 2,000 years ago. The heavily encrusted, clocklike mechanism—dubbed the "world's first computer"—was retrieved from an ancient shipwreck on the bottom of the sea off Greece in 1901. The new work is published in the Archive for History of Exact Science.

After several years of studying the mechanism and Babylonian records of eclipses, the collaborators have pinpointed the date when the mechanism was timed to begin—205 B.C. This suggests the mechanism is 50–100 years older than most researchers in the field have thought.

The new work fills a gap in ancient scientific history by indicating that the Greeks were able to predict eclipses and engineer a highly complex machine—sometimes called the world's first computer—at an earlier stage than believed. It also supports the idea that the eclipse prediction scheme was not based on Greek trigonometry (which was nonexistent in 205 B.C.)—but on Babylonian arithmetical methods, borrowed by the Greeks. ...

http://phys.org/news/2014-11-antikyther ... greek.html
 
Does this chronological recalibration now emphatically place at least a good millennium-and-a-half between when the technology was conventionally thought to have evolved, and when it actually was being practiced?

If so, why is this astounding revision so under-acknowledged (relatively speaking) within the mainstream?
 
In think that the amount of fluff and claims surrounding it will have resulted in a one-bitten-twice-shy attitude?
 
Does this chronological recalibration now emphatically place at least a good millennium-and-a-half between when the technology was conventionally thought to have evolved, and when it actually was being practiced?

If so, why is this astounding revision so under-acknowledged (relatively speaking) within the mainstream?

No, because ...

(1) The shift in timeframe is on the order of a century-and-a-half, not a "millennium-and-a-half".

(2) The timeframe cited concerns the mathematical / astronomical / historical model or observational data underlying the mechanism's apparent outputs (correlations among its indicators). In other words, it concerns the data model most evident in the mechanism's operations - not the mechanism's construction per se.

Whoever designed and constructed the Antikythera Mechanism would have necessarily based the initial designs and eventual testing on known observations or projections of patterns / relationships derived from past observations / ephemerides.

This (and related) research only demonstrates that the mechanism's design was based on a model (a) most consistent with known Babylonian modeling techniques (e.g., units of time) and (b) whose epoch (referential starting point; 'time zero') seems to best correlate with astronomical events circa 205 BCE.

This time point could conceivably have represented either the culmination date for the data the designer(s) employed or the starting date for collecting the data. Either way, it doesn't necessarily mean the physical mechanism dates back to circa 205 BCE.

This article by a different researcher (citing the work cited above, but focused on his own related hypotheses ...):

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0103275

... illustrates this sort of analysis and the scope of its implications.

The thing I find most interesting in these recent analyses is the fact they place the epoch (modeled start date) circa 205 BCE - some 7 years after Archimedes' death. This implies the Antikythera Mechanism cannot possibly be the same device Archimedes is claimed to have invented during his lifetime, and hence could only represent a derivation from Archimedes' alleged device (if it was inspired by Archimedes at all).

The article I linked above mentions Apollonios of Perga (d. circa 190 BCE) as a possible earliest candidate for the mechanism's designer / data modeler.
 
No, because ...

(1) The shift in timeframe is on the order of a century-and-a-half, not a "millennium-and-a-half".

Yes, but I meant the arithmetic separation between (say) circa 1300CE/anno domini as a guesstimate for the dawn of medieval clockwork, and a pushed-back maker's date of 205BCE.

Am just about to properly read your post and follow the links (ah, are you making the point that the device, as a astrochronographic artifice could easily have been built with miles on the dials depicting times past as well as future?)
 
Yes, but I meant the arithmetic separation between (say) circa 1300CE/anno domini as a guesstimate for the dawn of medieval clockwork, and a pushed-back maker's date of 205BCE.

Ahhhhh, I see now what you were driving at. I couldn't tell from your post that you were referring to the interval between the Antikythera Mechanism and similar medieval clockworks. Sorry ...


Am just about to properly read your post and follow the links (ah, are you making the point that the device, as a astrochronographic artifice could easily have been built with miles on the dials depicting times past as well as future?)

No, that wasn't my point (but I'm not sure I disagree with it ...).

My point was that the device had to be designed, built, and tested with respect to a reference model that already existed. These most recent analyses promote a candidate reference model with a starting point circa 205 BCE. If they are correct, it suggests a maximum age for the data used to design the mechanism. This has no necessary implication for the age of the physical mechanism itself.

The 205 BCE start date doesn't represent a clear and final conclusion. The article I linked above (different author) explains that the constraints imposed by his analysis / presumptions are consistent with eight start dates from 250 BCE to 1 BCE, of which the 205 BCE start date is purportedly the best match.
 
@EnolaGaia this is just stunning, thank you so much for the link
asset


@Frideswide. ...I take it you mean crazy 'fluff and claims' such as back to the early days of archeoastronautic postulations from Von Daniken etc, which although extravagant and tenuous certainly served to awaken an awareness amongst the non-academic readers of some fascinating possibilities. But to me (and many will surely agree) the actual evidenced truth is just as staggering.
 
I wonder what an ancient Greek sailor would have thought of our wonderful theories and reconstructions?

"What, that piece of old junk? Nah, that was the captain's coffee grinder, that's all!"

(Don't tell me coffee hadn't been discovered back then, I don't want to know!)
 
I take it you mean crazy 'fluff and claims' such as back to the early days of archeoastronautic postulations from Von Daniken etc, which although extravagant and tenuous certainly served to awaken an awareness amongst the non-academic readers of some fascinating possibilities. But to me (and many will surely agree) the actual evidenced truth is just as staggering.

I agree :) being an archaeologist does not close one off from wonder! And the von D stuff was exactly what I was thinking of :mad:
 
I wonder what an ancient Greek sailor would have thought of our wonderful theories and reconstructions?

"What, that piece of old junk? Nah, that was the captain's coffee grinder, that's all!"

(Don't tell me coffee hadn't been discovered back then, I don't want to know!)

The same impish thought had occurred to me, too. If only the mechanism hadn't been festooned with explicitly astronomical indicators and annotations, it might have turned out to be something completely different.

Just for the record, your apprehension is well-founded ... The earliest historical evidence for coffee drinking postdates the mechanism by at least 15 or 16 centuries.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Just for the record, your apprehension is well-founded ... The earliest historical evidence for coffee drinking postdates the mechanism by at least 15 or 16 centuries.

By coincidence, then, the collective social imbibing of coffee became prevalent in western society at around the same time as the rediscovery of clockwork. Odd.

Swiss clocks, Swiss chocs...tyrolean tick-tocks....coffee pots, cuckoo clocks..., rusted, cogs of time.....stops.

But surely proto-Mayans liked their Moccas? And didn't Colombians combine cocaine with coffee? Perhaps not esspressoly americano (I must stop milking this...)
 
... But surely proto-Mayans liked their Moccas? And didn't Colombians combine cocaine with coffee? Perhaps not esspressoly americano (I must stop milking this...)

As far as I know, coffee cultivation didn't come to the Americas until the 1700's.
 
The big question (that has possibly been asked earlier in this thread; but I haven't found it is 'if this device was built at the time it is supposed. Why is there virtually no small scale mechanisms from the same period.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. So one would expect there to be many examples of small gear driven mechanisms found over the years.And once a technology has been born, it doesn't just disappear. It is gradually superseded by improved versions. We have been using gears for a very long time and look like doing so for the foreseeable future.

So the Anti Kythera device is really out of place.

I have my suspicions about the dating.

INT21
 
The big question (that has possibly been asked earlier in this thread; but I haven't found it is 'if this device was built at the time it is supposed. Why is there virtually no small scale mechanisms from the same period.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. So one would expect there to be many examples of small gear driven mechanisms found over the years.And once a technology has been born, it doesn't just disappear. It is gradually superseded by improved versions. We have been using gears for a very long time and look like doing so for the foreseeable future.

So the Anti Kythera device is really out of place.

I have my suspicions about the dating.

INT21
The problem is, metal was such a scarce and valuable thing back then.
If some thief or scavenger at the time would have found such a mechanism, they would have probably stripped it of its metal without understanding what it was. This might explain why so little of this type of technology exists from that era.
 
Possibly, but one would not expect the whole technology to disappear for such a long time.

Consider that Harrison's first marine chronometer was made mostly from wood. Even the bearings (lignum Vitea).

something is wrong with the story.

INT21
 
The big question (that has possibly been asked earlier in this thread; but I haven't found it is 'if this device was built at the time it is supposed. Why is there virtually no small scale mechanisms from the same period.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. So one would expect there to be many examples of small gear driven mechanisms found over the years.And once a technology has been born, it doesn't just disappear. It is gradually superseded by improved versions. ...

The Antikythera mechanism, so far as we know to date, represents an unexpected degree of precision achieved with a known technology rather than a brand new technology per se.

Some popular accounts touting the mechanism insinuate gears weren't known (to be known and used ... ) at the time of the mechanism's construction (variously estimated to be somewhere between the late 3rd century BCE and the early 1st century BCE). Such a claim isn't warranted at all. Aristotle wrote about the behavior of gearworks at least a century before the earliest estimated construction date, and the gear-driven Chinese south-pointing chariots similarly pre-date the mechanism.

The key issue isn't so much the mechanics of the device as the precision of its construction and presumed operations. Achieving precision in machinery entails additional investments of time, etc. Such additional costs result in precision being a premium feature reserved for special apparatus of great perceived importance. The Antikythera mechanism was a custom-built masterpiece for its time, and the lack of similarly precise machines in common use is therefore no big surprise.

Some additional factors to bear in mind ...

- Historically, timekeeping has provided the initial impetus for precision machine making. The Greeks and Romans achieved sufficient timekeeping capabilities with water clocks.

- The metallurgy of that era limited the feasibility and durability of smaller, finer gears.

- This was still a period in which physical work held a bigger everyday priority than 'data presentation' (e.g., time, astronomical predictions), so engineering was more focused on larger gear mechanisms.

- To the extent the Antikythera mechanism is considered an example of a mechanical planetarium / astrarium or orrery, it wasn't unique.
 
Eloquently put. I question the carbon dating. This level of technical precision was possible possibly 3000 years ago as far as the availability of metalurgical process is concerned, but I posit that it is far more likely that this item is a more recent creation from amongst other similar devices of more recent production. I strongly doubt this thing was a once-off creation of some isolated genius ahead of his/her time 2000 years ago. Radio-carbon dating is a valid method, but it isn't infallible. The concretion evident inside the gears of the device could skew the dating.

Can coral concretion be carbon dated? I think it can.
 
EnolaGaia,

..The Antikythera mechanism was a custom-built masterpiece for its time, and the lack of similarly precise machines in common use is therefore no big surprise...

I have to disagree with this.

How can you have a 'masterpeice' when there is nothing of the same kind, doing similar things, to compare it with ?

A masterpiece is generally meant to describe the final examination piece produced by an apprentice or journeyman artisan. Something to show what he can do.

There should be lots of cruder mechanical examples from the same period; but there isn't. Also the technology involved is so important in it's own right that it would not have disappeared. They still used large crude wooden gears and screws at the time.

As for the availability of metals. The Greeks and the Romans had lots of metallic objects, from swords to armour as well as many everyday tools. So no shortage. And the device used very little material.

INT21
 
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