Comments on: Antikythera Mechanism revealed!

By: Zephryous

Zephryous — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 18:25:48 +0000

Concerning the technical aspects of machining such a device, for example the ancient peoples north from Greece had very advanced goldsmithing techniques to create very intricate pieces of jewellery that today would need the use of magnifying lenses atleast or extremely, extremely good eyesight and eye-hand coordination (but it’s a wonder what being apprenticed since birth to a single profession with no other interests can do).

While bronze is not as malleable as gold, you can pour it into a mold and then file it into gears such as used in Antikythera mechanism, and Heron for instance built many gear mechanisms in ancient Alexandria, and describes them in his surviving works. Nothing in his work states that the principles were his inventions. Most of the written works of antiquity are lost to us, so his sources remain unknown.

Concerning astronomical knowledge, that is no surprise. Astronomy is the oldest science, and while some Hellenic thinkers did infact have scientifically sound methods of determining the distance between the Earth and the Moon, and thence the Sun, their naked-eye measurements of the heavens were not accurate enough to produce anything but suggestive results (as in “the Sun is atleast a 100 times farther away than the Moon, and thus must be larger of the two). It’s another thing to model what you know using a mechanical apparatus than to invent new instruments that can aid you in the accuracy of measurements.

By: Torbjörn Larsson, OM

Torbjörn Larsson, OM — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 23:44:53 +0000

It would also be very fascinating if the design could be directly attributed to Archimedes.

Archimedes is dated to c. 287 BC – c. 212 BC, the Antikythera mechanism is dated to c. 150–100 BC and is based on Persian and Egyptian astronomy. But perhaps his mechanical ideas spread during the 3-5 generations in between to be the basis for it.

As others noted earlier, the surprise is not that one man realized in mechanical form what his intellect and inner harmonics told him,

That is poetic, but where is the science?

By: Seth Kaplan

Seth Kaplan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:05:55 +0000

I watched the History Channel show about the antikythera. When the narrator mentioned that the device potentially could have as many as 70 gears, I recalled something I read in “Gifts of Unknown Things,” by Lyall Watson. He reports attending a dance of fruitfulness on Nus Tarian, a small volcanic island in Indonesia. The leader of the rite waits until he senses a unity between stars and sea. At his signal, special participants ring a bronze gong. They continue to ring the gong at measured, precise intervals, which do not change as music and dance swirl around them. Exactly 24 hours after they begin, they cease, having rung the gong 69 times. Why 69? The rite leader simply knows that 69 is the number since time immemorial.
Watson got his answer from a physicist later: He “learned that the Earth-ionosphere cavity acts as a natural resonator with a period of 1,250 second. This means that our planet resounds once every twenty minutes and fifty seconds. We live on a gigantic gong that booms out exactly sixty-nine times every day!” (p. 162).
So, why did this explanation “ring a bell” for me? Because of the possibility that many ancients knew of this “music of the spheres,” this astro-planetary vibration to which all surface dwellers instinctively quiver. Man, being endlessly inventive, found many ways to interpret and express this primordial gong tone, depending on the time and society in which they experienced the effect.
As others noted earlier, the surprise is not that one man realized in mechanical form what his intellect and inner harmonics told him, but that it took us this long to understand that many men and women experienced the same phenomenon and found many different means to describe and express it.

By: John Paradox

John Paradox — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 01:00:59 +0000

History Channel on 8/5-6:
Ancient Discoveries: Ancient Computer?

Check your listings for times

J/P=?

By: amphiox

amphiox — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 16:12:34 +0000

I think a certain critical mass of general technical competency, economic opportunity and need are necessary before innovations of this kind can spread and become more or less permanent.

So long as the high tech is available only to an elite few and used for a limited number of applications of interest only to that elite few, the chances are good that it will be lost through accident, if the elite should change their attitudes or be overthrown, or if the specific application disappears or becomes less important.

There are many instances of inventions associated with the industrial revolution and beyond (printing press, steam engine, mechanical clock, etc) having pre-existed in some form in antiquity is disparate civilizations all across the world, each appearing for a time in an isolated place, only to be lost. During the period we call the industrial revolution were the conditions ripe for such innovations to take root and spread widely.

(Think of what Leonardo da Vinci and his contemporaries might have accomplished if they had access to the technology and techniques of the Ancient Greeks as demonstrated by the Antikythera Mechanism!)

By: Dave Hall

Dave Hall — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:05:13 +0000

It is hard to believe anything Crichton writes. His books–especially the later ones are full of anti Science attitude and distortions of science to fit his plot lines and political agenda. The man is a luddite.

By: Mark Hansen

Mark Hansen — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 05:27:36 +0000

Charles, I would have to check it but I am sure that Crichton was referring to seeing Venus in daylight. As others have pointed out it is still possible to do this now so, to the best of my knowledge, he got it wrong (except in heavily-polluted areas).