Unlocking the 'Cosmos' on the Antikythera Mechanism, the world's first computer

[C C]

https://www.livescience.com/antikythera-...deled.html

EXCERPTS: Scientists may have finally made a complete digital model for the Cosmos panel of a 2,000-year-old mechanical device called the Antikythera mechanism that's believed to be the world's first computer.

[...] scientists were never able to fully replicate the mechanism that drove the astonishing device, or the calculations used in its design, from the battered and corroded brass fragment discovered in the [ship] wreck. But now researchers at University College London say they have fully recreated the design of the device, from the ancient calculations used to create it, and are now putting together their own contraption to see if their design works.

"Our work reveals the Antikythera Mechanism as a beautiful conception, translated by superb engineering into a device of genius," the researchers wrote March 12 in the open-access journal Scientific Reports. "It challenges all our preconceptions about the technological capabilities of the ancient Greeks."

[...] "There's no evidence that the ancient Greeks were able to build something like this. It really is a mystery," said Wojcik. "The only way to test if they could is to try to build it the ancient Greek way."

"And there's also a lot of debate about who it was for and who built it. A lot of people say it was Archimedes," Wojcik said. "He lived around the same time it was constructed, and no one else had the same level of engineering ability that he did. It was also a Roman shipwreck." Archimedes was killed by Romans during the Siege of Syracuse, after the weapons he invented failed to prevent them from capturing the city.

Mysteries also remain as to whether the ancient Greeks used similar techniques to make other, yet-to-be-discovered, devices or whether copies of the Antikythera mechanism are waiting to be found. "It's a bit like having a TARDIS appear in the Stone Age," said Wojcik, referring to Doctor Who's time-traveling spacecraft... (MORE - details)

(Mar 12, 2021) Researchers at UCL have solved a major piece of the puzzle

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/GQnE0BLEi8k

[Yazata]

EXCERPTS: Scientists may have finally made a complete digital model for the Cosmos panel of a 2,000-year-old mechanical device called the Antikythera mechanism that's believed to be the world's first computer.

I prefer to think of it as an orrery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orrery

It was certainly an analog computer in the sense that it was a calculating device. But it only performed predetermined astronomical calculations and couldn't be programmed.

"Our work reveals the Antikythera Mechanism as a beautiful conception, translated by superb engineering into a device of genius," the researchers wrote... "It challenges all our preconceptions about the technological capabilities of the ancient Greeks."

[...] "There's no evidence that the ancient Greeks were able to build something like this. It really is a mystery," said Wojcik. "The only way to test if they could is to try to build it the ancient Greek way."

Space aliens.

I believe (but don't remember the source) that there were ancient accounts of devices like this, but apart from the Antikythera Mechanism none have been found. It's well known that the Hellenistic period (after Alexander) was a period of tremendous intellectual ferment and creativity. Many of the familiar aspects of intellectual life, such a professors, textbooks, government sponsered think-tanks, even literary criticism... all appeared at this time.

"And there's also a lot of debate about who it was for and who built it. A lot of people say it was Archimedes,"

It could have been. I seem to recall that the ancients credited him with building things like this. An argument in favor of this theory is that the site of the shipwreck where this was found was on a shipping route between the Aegean and southern Italy where Archimedes lived in the then-great Greek city of Syracuse in Sicily. The question remains whether it was traveling east from somebody like Archimedes or west from somebody like Hipparchus of Rhodes. An argument in favor of Hipparchus is that he lived about a century after Archimedes and most of the dates for the Antikythera Mechanism shipwreck have it closer to Hipparchus' lifetime than Archimedes'. Of course the possibility exists that it might have been made in Archimedes' time and was merely being moved when the ship that was carrying it sank. Another argument in favor of Hipparchus is that the Antikythera Mechanism seems to take account of the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit and Hipparchus is credited with discovering that.

Hipparchus was one of the underappreciated greats of this amazing period. He's credited with inventing trigonometry (thus earning the loathing of schoolkids everywhere), calculating the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit, discovering the precession of the equinoxes, and lots of other things. Though if Hipparchus might be responsible for the Mechanism, he may not have constructed it himself. It was more likely made by skilled craftsmen according to a plan drawn up by some unknown scholar of the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hipparchus