It is sometimes called the world's oldest computer for its ability to perform astronomy calculations.
The remains of the mechanism were discovered by sponge divers off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901. According to a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, only a small portion of the original mechanism is still alive today. Around 2200 years ago, it was built.
The mechanism could tell when the Olympics were going to take place, and it could help track the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets. The team wrote that it was a mechanical computer of bronze gears that used ground-breaking technology to make astronomy predictions.
Scholars have been trying to understand the device since it was discovered. Many questions remain unanswered despite the considerable progress they have made. Researchers are unsure of who made it. The mechanism is thought to have been created by the Greek inventor, but this is not certain. The mechanisms are written in Greek.
RECOMMENDED VIDEOS FOR YOU...
Aristeidis Voulgaris told Live Science that whoever made the device had to know a lot about astronomy, metallurgy and mechanology. The aim of this project is to understand the mechanism better. They would have needed a lot of dexterity in their hands.
Over the past two decades, scientists have been able to read more of the Greek inscriptions using high tech techniques, such as 3D X-ray scanning. They have been able to learn more about how the mechanism works.
The researchers wrote in the Scientific Reports article that "CT scans revealed inscriptions describing the motions of the sun, moon and all five planets known in antiquity and how they were displayed at the front as an ancient Greek universe." The mechanism was based on Babylonian astronomy, Plato's Academy and ancient Greek theories.
Alexander Jones is a professor of the history of the exact sciences in antiquity at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.
The front of the mechanism has a dial that shows the movements of the sun, moon, and Mercury.
The mechanism had a huge array of gears between the front and back of it.
A user of the Antikythera Mechanism might want to check eclipse predictions for a certain month. Tony Freeth, a researcher with the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project, wrote in a paper that the user winds the mechanism forwards to the date they want.
The wreck of the ship that held the Antikythera mechanism has not been excavated. The size of the ship that carried it is not clear, and how much of the artifacts are dispersed is not certain. It's location and depth make it hard to dig. The site is too deep for scuba divers to explore for long but too shallow for remotely operated vehicles to investigate.
Despite these difficulties a new program of excavation is being carried out by a team of archaeologists and new artifacts continue to be found.
Many of the artifacts were meant for the rich. New remains of the mechanism have not been found so far.
Live Science reported at the time that archaeologists found the skeleton of a man at the wreck. Scientists are trying to get more information about the man.
It's not clear why the mechanism was on the ship. Jones said in his book that this was not an object one would casually subject to the risk of travel. The mechanism wouldn't have been a one-of-a-kind device, but it would have been worth a lot. Jones wrote that a storm may have caused the ship to sink and that a technician may have been transporting the device to its owner. Scholars are debating where the ship came from and where it went.
The earliest date on which all calculations are based is still being debated by scholars. December 22, 178 B.C. is the proposed start date for the mechanism. There was a festival dedicated to the goddess Isis on that day as well as a lunar eclipse. Isis was seen as a goddess in Greece at the time.
The most likely start date is May 12th, 204 B.C., since a lunar eclipse would have been visible in Greece. Someone who worked in his workshop could have built this device.
In Scientific Reports 5822, Freeth and his co-authors describe a model of the cosmos in the ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism.
There is a new tab at the bottom of this article.
"Eclipse prediction on the Ancient Greek Calculating Machine known as the Antikythera Mechanism" was written by Freeth.
There is a new tab on the journal's website.
The Oxford University Press has a book by A. Jones called "A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World"
"The Initial Calibration Date of the Antikythera Mechanism after the Saros spiral mechanical Apokatastasis" was written by Voulgaris and his co- authors.
There's a new tab on thearxiv.org.
It was originally published on Live Science
All Rights Reserved © 2024
