Antikythera Mechanism: Brass Calculator from 200 B.C. | Robert Sandberg - Indices Rerum - Adding Daily to the General Hullabaloo Among the Spheres

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Jul 31 2008

Antikythera Mechanism: Brass Calculator from 200 B.C.

Posted by: Robert Sandberg in Culture, History, Science, tags: ancient technology

from Reuters News, July 31, 2008:

A mechanical brass calculator used by the ancient Greeks to predict solar and lunar eclipses was probably also used to set the dates for the first Olympic games, researchers said on Wednesday.

The Antikythera Mechanism was retrieved from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901, an example of the technological prowess of the ancient Greeks.

This is to me truly amazing and makes me wonder if technology (especially technology used to store and control electricity) might have developed centuries sooner than it did. What took so long? Mythological or magical thinking leading to the imprisonment, torture, or execution of free thinking trouble-makers? Probably.

Click here to read the article.

Below are before and after pictures of the Antikythera Mechanism; click to enlarge.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 8:30 am and is filed under Culture, History, Science.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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