Your Attention : Please visit the next web pages which are displayed at the left !.. Thank you.

and ... of course ... please scroll down ...

, www.paypal.com my email account: braintumor2014@gmail.com , or , or

********************************************

MY PERSONAL DATA ...

FIRST NAME : Evangelos, SECOND NAME: VOLOTAS, CITY : ATHENS, COUNTRY : GREECE, ( EUROPE )

********************************************

PLEASE SEND SMS TO THE MOBILE PHONE 0030 6942686838

( NOTE 0030 IS THE INTERNATIONAL AREA CODE FOR 'GREECE, EUROPE' )

***************************************************************

in my fight against my Brain Tumor which is Growing, ((( for more information about me, please visit my MEDICAL web page

https://sites.google.com/site/niactec/homeenglish )))

==========

2019-10-07 : the website is under construction.

==========

*****************

The Antikythera Mechanism - The World's Oldest Computer

Minor fragments[edit]

Many of the smaller fragments that have been found contain nothing of apparent value; however, a few have some inscriptions on them. Fragment 19 contains significant back door inscriptions including one reading "... 76 years ..." which refers to the Callippic cycle. Other inscriptions seem to describe the function of the back dials. In addition to this important minor fragment, 15 further minor fragments have remnants of inscriptions on them.^[21]:7

Mechanism

Information on the specific data gleaned from the ruins by the latest inquiries is detailed in the supplement to Freeth's 2006Nature article.^[5]

Operation[edit]

On the front face of the mechanism there is a fixed ring dial representing the ecliptic, the twelve zodiacal signs marked off with equal 30-degree sectors. This matched with the Babylonian custom of assigning one twelfth of the ecliptic to each zodiac sign equally, even though the constellation boundaries were variable. Outside of that dial is another ring which is rotatable, marked off with the months and days of the Sothic Egyptian calendar, twelve months of 30 days plus five intercalary days. The months are marked with the Egyptian names for the months transcribed into the Greek alphabet. The first task, then, is to rotate the Egyptian calendar ring to match the current zodiac points. The Egyptian calendar ignored leap days, so it advanced through a full zodiac sign in about 120 years.^[6]

The mechanism was operated by turning a small hand crank (now lost) which was linked via a crown gear to the largest gear, the four-spoked gear visible on the front of fragment A, the gear named b1. This moved the date pointer on the front dial, which would be set to the correct Egyptian calendar day. The year is not selectable, so it is necessary to know the year currently set, or by looking up the cycles indicated by the various calendar cycle indicators on the back in the Babylonianephemeris tables for the day of the year currently set, since most of the calendar cycles are not synchronous with the year. The crank moves the date pointer about 78 days per full rotation, so hitting a particular day on the dial would be easily possible if the mechanism were in good working condition. The action of turning the hand crank would also cause all interlocked gears within the mechanism to rotate, resulting in the simultaneous calculation of the position of the Sun and Moon, the moon phase, eclipse, and calendar cycles, and perhaps the locations ofplanets.^[47]

The operator also had to be aware of the position of the spiral dial pointers on the two large dials on the back. The pointer had a "follower" that tracked the spiral incisions in the metal as the dials incorporated four and five full rotations of the pointers. When a pointer reached the terminal month location at either end of the spiral, the pointer's follower had to be manually moved to the other end of the spiral before proceeding further.^[5]:10

Faces

Front face[edit]

The front dial has two concentric circular scales that represent the path of the ecliptic through the heavens. The outer ring is marked off with the days of the 365-day Egyptian civil calendar. On the inner ring, a second dial marks the Greek signs of theZodiac, with division into degrees. The mechanism predates the Julian calendar reform, but the Sothic and Callippic cycleshad already pointed to a 365 ¹⁄₄-day solar year, as seen in Ptolemy III's abortive calendrical reform of 238 BC. The dials are not believed to reflect his proposed leap day (Epag. 6), but the outer calendar dial may be moved against the inner dial to compensate for the effect of the extra quarter-day in the solar year by turning the scale backward one day every four years.

The position of the Sun on the ecliptic corresponds to the current date in the year. The orbits of the Moon and the five planets known to the Greeks are close enough to the ecliptic to make it a convenient reference for defining their positions as well.

The following three Egyptian months are inscribed in Greek letters on the surviving pieces of the outer ring:^[48]

· ΠΑΧΩΝ (Pachon)

· ΠΑΥΝΙ (Payni)

· ΕΠΙΦΙ (Epiphi)

The other months have been reconstructed, although some reconstructions of the mechanism omit the five days of the Egyptian intercalary month. The Zodiac dial contains Greek inscriptions of the members of the zodiac, which is believed to be adapted to the tropical month version rather than the sidereal:^{[21]:8[failed verification]}

· ΚΡΙΟΣ (Krios [Ram], Aries)

· ΤΑΥΡΟΣ (Tauros [Bull], Taurus)

· ΔΙΔΥΜΟΙ (Didymoi [Twins], Gemini)

· ΚΑΡΚΙΝΟΣ (Karkinos [Crab], Cancer)

· ΛΕΩΝ (Leon [Lion], Leo)

· ΠΑΡΘΕΝΟΣ (Parthenos [Maiden], Virgo)

· ΧΗΛΑΙ (Chelai [Scorpio's Claw or Zygos], Libra)

· ΣΚΟΡΠΙΟΣ (Skorpios [Scorpion], Scorpio)

· ΤΟΞΟΤΗΣ (Toxotes [Archer], Sagittarius)

· ΑΙΓΟΚΕΡΩΣ (Aigokeros [Goat-horned], Capricorn)

· ΥΔΡΟΧΟΟΣ (Hydrokhoos [Water carrier], Aquarius)

· ΙΧΘΥΕΣ (Ichthyes [Fishes], Pisces)

Also on the zodiac dial are a number of single characters at specific points (see reconstruction here:^[49]). They are keyed to aparapegma, a precursor of the modern day almanac inscribed on the front face above and beneath the dials. They mark the locations of longitudes on the ecliptic for specific stars. The parapegma above the dials reads (square brackets indicate inferred text):

The parapegma beneath the dials reads:

At least two pointers indicated positions of bodies upon the ecliptic. A lunar pointer indicated the position of the Moon, and a mean Sun pointer also was shown, perhaps doubling as the current date pointer. The Moon position was not a simple mean Moon indicator that would indicate movement uniformly around a circular orbit; it approximated the acceleration and deceleration of the Moon's elliptical orbit, through the earliest extant use of epicyclic gearing.

It also tracked the precession of the elliptical orbit around the ecliptic in an 8.88-year cycle. The mean Sun position is, by definition, the current date. It is speculated that since such pains were taken to get the position of the Moon correct,^{[21]:20, 24} then there also was likely to have been a "true sun" pointer in addition to the mean Sun pointer likewise, to track the elliptical anomaly of the Sun (the orbit of Earth around the Sun), but there is no evidence of it among the ruins of the mechanism found to date.^[6] Similarly, neither is there the evidence of planetary orbit pointers for the five planets known to the Greeks among the ruins. See Proposed planet indication gearing schemes below.

Finally, mechanical engineer Michael Wright has demonstrated that there was a mechanism to supply the lunar phase in addition to the position.^[50] The indicator was a small ball embedded in the lunar pointer, half-white and half-black, which rotated to show the phase (new, first quarter, half, third quarter, full, and back) graphically. The data to support this function is available given the Sun and Moon positions as angular rotations; essentially, it is the angle between the two, translated into the rotation of the ball. It requires a differential gear, a gearing arrangement that sums or differences two angular inputs.

Rear face

In July 2008, scientists reported new findings in the journal Nature showing that the mechanism not only tracked the Metonic calendar and predicted solar eclipses, but also calculated the timing of several panhellenic athletic games, including theAncient Olympic Games.^[8] Inscriptions on the instrument closely match the names of the months that are used on calendars from Epirus in northwestern Greece and with the island of Corfu, which in antiquity was known as Corcyra.^[51][52][53]

On the back of the mechanism, there are five dials: the two large displays, the Metonic and the Saros, and three smaller indicators, the so-called Olympiad Dial,^[8] which has recently been renamed the Games dial as it did not track Olympiad years (the four-year cycle it tracks most closely is the Halieiad),^[10] the Callippic, and the Exeligmos.^[5]:11

The Metonic Dial is the main upper dial on the rear of the mechanism. The Metonic cycle, defined in several physical units, is 235 synodic months, which is very close (to within less than 13 one-millionths) to 19 tropical years. It is therefore a convenient interval over which to convert between lunar and solar calendars. The Metonic dial covers 235 months in five rotations of the dial, following a spiral track with a follower on the pointer that keeps track of the layer of the spiral. The pointer points to the synodic month, counted from new moon to new moon, and the cell contains the Corinthian month names.^[8][54][55]

1. ΦΟΙΝΙΚΑΙΟΣ (Phoinikaios)

2. ΚΡΑΝΕΙΟΣ (Kraneios)

3. ΛΑΝΟΤΡΟΠΙΟΣ (Lanotropios)

4. ΜΑΧΑΝΕΥΣ (Machaneus, "mechanic", referring to Zeus the inventor)

5. ΔΩΔΕΚΑΤΕΥΣ (Dodekateus)

6. ΕΥΚΛΕΙΟΣ (Eukleios)

7. ΑΡΤΕΜΙΣΙΟΣ (Artemisios)

8. ΨΥΔΡΕΥΣ (Psydreus)

9. ΓΑΜΕΙΛΙΟΣ (Gameilios)

10. ΑΓΡΙΑΝΙΟΣ (Agrianios)

11. ΠΑΝΑΜΟΣ (Panamos)

12. ΑΠΕΛΛΑΙΟΣ (Apellaios)

Thus, setting the correct solar time (in days) on the front panel indicates the current lunar month on the back panel, with resolution to within a week or so.

Based on the fact that the calendar month names are consistent with all the evidence of the Epirote calendar and that the Games dial mentions the very minor Naa games of Dodona (in Epirus), it has recently been argued that the calendar on the Antikythera Mechanism is likely to be the Epirote calendar, and that this calendar was probably adopted from a Corinthian colony in Epirus, possibly Ambracia.^[55] It has also been argued that the first month of the calendar, Phoinikaios, was ideally the month in which the autumn equinox fell, and that the start-up date of the calendar began shortly after the astronomical new moon of 23 August 205 BC.^[56]

The Callippic dial is the left secondary upper dial, which follows a 76-year cycle. The Callippic cycle is four Metonic cycles, and so this dial indicates the current Metonic cycle in the overall Callippic cycle.^{[citation needed]}

The Games dial is the right secondary upper dial; it is the only pointer on the instrument that travels in a counter-clockwise direction as time advances. The dial is divided into four sectors, each of which is inscribed with a year indicator and the name of two Panhellenic Games: the "crown" games of Isthmia, Olympia, Nemea, and Pythia; and two lesser games: Naa (held at Dodona),^[57] and the sixth and final set of Games recently deciphered as the Halieia of Rhodes.^[58] The inscriptions on each one of the four divisions are:^[5][8]

The Saros dial is the main lower spiral dial on the rear of the mechanism.^{[5]:4–5, 10} The Saros cycle is 18 years and 11 ¹⁄₃ days long (6585.333... days), which is very close to 223 synodic months (6585.3211 days). It is defined as the cycle of repetition of the positions required to cause solar and lunar eclipses, and therefore, it could be used to predict them — not only the month, but the day and time of day. Note that the cycle is approximately 8 hours longer than an integer number of days. Translated into global spin, that means an eclipse occurs not only eight hours later, but one-third of a rotation farther to the west. Glyphs in 51 of the 223 synodic month cells of the dial specify the occurrence of 38 lunar and 27 solar eclipses. Some of the abbreviations in the glyphs read:

· Σ = ΣΕΛΗΝΗ (Moon)

· Η = ΗΛΙΟΣ (Sun)

· H\M = ΗΜΕΡΑΣ (of the day)

· ω\ρ = ωρα (hour)

· N\Y = ΝΥΚΤΟΣ (of the night)

The glyphs show whether the designated eclipse is solar or lunar, and give the day of the month and hour; obviously, solar eclipses may not be visible at any given point, and lunar eclipses are visible only if the moon is above the horizon at the appointed hour.^[21]:6 In addition, the inner lines at the cardinal points of the Saros dial indicate the start of a new full moon cycle. Based on the distribution of the times of the eclipses, it has recently been argued that the start-up date of the Saros dial was shortly after the astronomical new moon of 28 April 205 BC.^[59]

The Exeligmos Dial is the secondary lower dial on the rear of the mechanism. The Exeligmos cycle is a 54-year triple Saros cycle that is 19,756 days long. Since the length of the Saros cycle is to a third of a day (eight hours), so a full Exeligmos cycle returns counting to integer days, hence the inscriptions. The labels on its three divisions are:^[5]:10

· Blank or o ? (representing the number zero, assumed, not yet observed)

· H (number 8) means add 8 hours to the time mentioned in the display

· Iϛ (number 16) means add 16 hours to the time mentioned in the display

Thus the dial pointer indicates how many hours must be added to the glyph times of the Saros dial in order to calculate the exact eclipse times.

Doors[edit]

The mechanism has a wooden casing with a front and a back door, both containing inscriptions.^[8][21] The back door appears to be the "instruction manual". On one of its fragments is written "76 years, 19 years" representing the Callippic and Metonic cycles. Also written is "223" for the Saros cycle. On another one of its fragments, it is written "on the spiral subdivisions 235" referring to the Metonic dial.

Gearing[edit]

The mechanism is remarkable for the level of miniaturisation and the complexity of its parts, which is comparable to that of fourteenth-century astronomical clocks. It has at least 30 gears, although mechanism expert Michael Wright has suggested that the Greeks of this period were capable of implementing a system with many more gears.^[47]

There is much debate as to whether the mechanism had indicators for all five of the planets known to the ancient Greeks. No gearing for such a planetary display survives and all gears are accounted for—with the exception of one 63-toothed gear (r1) otherwise unaccounted for in fragment D.^[6]

The purpose of the front face was to position astronomical bodies with respect to the celestial sphere along the ecliptic, in reference to the observer's position on the Earth. That is irrelevant to the question of whether that position was computed using a heliocentric or geocentric view of the solar system; either computational method should, and does, result in the same position (ignoring ellipticity), within the error factors of the mechanism.

The epicyclic Solar System of Ptolemy (c. 100 – 170 AD) – still 300 years in the future from the apparent date of the mechanism – carried forward with more epicycles, and was more accurate predicting the positions of planets than the view of Copernicus (1473 – 1543 AD), until Kepler (1571 – 1630 AD) introduced the possibility that orbits are ellipses.^[60]

Evans et al. suggest that to display the mean positions of the five classical planets would require only 17 further gears that could be positioned in front of the large driving gear and indicated using individual circular dials on the face.^[61]

Tony Freeth and Alexander Jones have modelled and published details of a version using several gear trains mechanically-similar to the lunar anomaly system allowing for indication of the positions of the planets as well as synthesis of the Sun anomaly. Their system, they claim, is more authentic than Wright's model as it uses the known skill sets of the Greeks of that period and does not add excessive complexity or internal stresses to the machine.^[6]

The gear teeth were in the form of equilateral triangles with an average circular pitch of 1.6 mm, an average wheel thickness of 1.4 mm and an average air gap between gears of 1.2 mm. The teeth probably were created from a blank bronze round using hand tools; this is evident because not all of them are even.^[6] Due to advances in imaging and X-ray technology it is now possible to know the precise number of teeth and size of the gears within the located fragments. Thus the basic operation of the device is no longer a mystery and has been replicated accurately. The major unknown remains the question of the presence and nature of any planet indicators.^[21]:8

A table of the gears, their teeth, and the expected and computed rotations of various important gears follows. The gear functions come from Freeth et al. (2008)^[8]and those for the lower half of the table from Freeth and Jones 2012.^[6] The computed values start with 1 year/revolution for the b1 gear, and the remainder are computed directly from gear teeth ratios. The gears marked with an asterisk (*) are missing, or have predecessors missing, from the known mechanism; these gears have been calculated with reasonable gear teeth counts.^[8][21]

Table notes:

1. ^ Change from traditional naming: X is the main year axis, turns once per year with gear B1. The B axis is the axis with gears B3 and B6, while the E axis is the axis with gears E3 and E4. Other axes on E (E1/E6 and E2/E5) are irrelevant to this table.

2. ^ "Time" is the interval represented by one complete revolution of the gear.

3. ^ As viewed from the front of the Mechanism. The "natural" view is viewing the side of the Mechanism the dial/pointer in question is actually displayed on.

4. ^ The Greeks, being in the northern hemisphere, assumed proper daily motion of the stars was from east to west, ccw when the ecliptic and zodiac is viewed to the south. As viewed on the front of the Mechanism.

5. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h} On average, due to epicyclic gearing causing accelerations and decelerations.

6. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e} Being on the reverse side of the box, the "natural" rotation is the opposite

7. ^ This was the only visual pointer naturally travelling in the counter-clockwise direction.

8. ^ Internal and not visible.

9. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f} Prograde motion; retrograde is obviously the opposite direction.

There are several gear ratios for each planet that result in close matches to the correct values for synodic periods of the planets and the Sun. The ones chosen above seem to provide good accuracy with reasonable tooth counts, but the specific gears that may have been used are, and probably will remain, unknown.^[6]

Known gear scheme

A hypothetical schematic representation of the gearing of the Antikythera Mechanism, including the 2012 published interpretation of existing gearing, gearing added to complete known functions, and proposed gearing to accomplish additional functions, namely true sun pointer and pointers for the five then-known planets, as proposed by Freeth and Jones, 2012.^[6] Based also upon similar drawing in the Freeth 2006 Supplement^[21] and Wright 2005, Epicycles Part 2.^[62] Proposed (as opposed to known from the artefact) gearing crosshatched.

It is very probable that there were planetary dials, as the complicated motions and periodicities of all planets are mentioned in the manual of the mechanism. The exact position and mechanisms for the gears of the planets is not known. There is no coaxial system but only for the Moon. Fragment D that is an epicycloidal system is considered as a planetary gear for Jupiter (Moussas, 2011, 2012, 2014) or a gear for the motion of the Sun (University of Thessaloniki group). The Sun gear is operated from the hand-operated crank (connected to gear a1, driving the large four-spoked mean Sun gear, b1) and in turn drives the rest of the gear sets. The Sun gear is b1/b2 and b2 has 64 teeth. It directly drives the date/mean sun pointer (there may have been a second, "true sun" pointer that displayed the Sun's elliptical anomaly; it is discussed below in the Freeth reconstruction). In this discussion, reference is to modelled rotational period of various pointers and indicators; they all assume the input rotation of the b1 gear of 360 degrees, corresponding with one tropical year, and are computed solely on the basis of the gear ratios of the gears named.^[5][8][63]

The Moon train starts with gear b1 and proceeds through c1, c2, d1, d2, e2, e5, k1, k2, e6, e1, and b3 to the Moon pointer on the front face. The gears k1 and k2 form an epicyclic gear system; they are an identical pair of gears that don't mesh, but rather, they operate face-to-face, with a short pin on k1 inserted into a slot in k2. The two gears have different centres of rotation, so the pin must move back and forth in the slot. That increases and decreases the radius at which k2 is driven, also necessarily varying its angular velocity (presuming the velocity of k1 is even) faster in some parts of the rotation than others. Over an entire revolution the average velocities are the same, but the fast-slow variation models the effects of the elliptical orbit of the Moon, in consequence of Kepler's second and third laws. The modelled rotational period of the Moon pointer (averaged over a year) is 27.321 days, compared to the modern length of a lunar sidereal month of 27.321661 days. As mentioned, the pin/slot driving of the k1/k2 gears varies the displacement over a year's time, and the mounting of those two gears on the e3 gear supplies a precessional advancement to the ellipticity modelling with a period of 8.8826 years, compared with the current value of precession period of the moon of 8.85 years.^[5][8][63]

The system also models the phases of the Moon. The Moon pointer holds a shaft along its length, on which is mounted a small gear named r, which meshes to the Sun pointer at B0 (the connection between B0 and the rest of B is not visible in the original mechanism, so whether b0 is the current date/mean Sun pointer or a hypothetical true Sun pointer is not known). The gear rides around the dial with the Moon, but is also geared to the Sun — the effect is to perform a differential gearoperation, so the gear turns at the synodic month period, measuring in effect, the angle of the difference between the Sun and Moon pointers. The gear drives a small ball that appears through an opening in the Moon pointer's face, painted longitudinally half white and half black, displaying the phases pictorially. It turns with a modelled rotational period of 29.53 days; the modern value for the synodic month is 29.530589 days.^[5][8][63]

The Metonic train is driven by the drive train b1, b2, l1, l2, m1, m2, and n1, which is connected to the pointer. The modelled rotational period of the pointer is the length of the 6939.5 days (over the whole five-rotation spiral), while the modern value for the Metonic cycle is 6939.69 days.^[5][8][63]

The Olympiad train is driven by b1, b2, l1, l2, m1, m2, n1, n2, and o1, which mounts the pointer. It has a computed modelled rotational period of exactly four years, as expected. Incidentally, it is the only pointer on the mechanism that rotates counter-clockwise; all of the others rotate clockwise.^[5][8][63]

The Callippic train is driven by b1, b2, l1, l2, m1, m2, n1, n3, p1, p2, and q1, which mounts the pointer. It has a computed modelled rotational period of 27758 days, while the modern value is 27758.8 days.^[5][8][63]

The Saros train is driven by b1, b2, l1, l2, m1, m3, e3, e4, f1, f2, and g1, which mounts the pointer. The modelled rotational period of the Saros pointer is 1646.3 days (in four rotations along the spiral pointer track); the modern value is 1646.33 days.^[5][8][63]

The Exeligmos train is driven by b1, b2, l1, l2, m1, m3, e3, e4, f1, f2, g1, g2, h1, h2, and i1, which mounts the pointer. The modelled rotational period of the Exeligmos pointer is 19,756 days; the modern value is 19755.96 days.^[5][8][63]

Apparently, gears m3, n1-3, p1-2, and q1 did not survive in the wreckage. The functions of the pointers were deduced from the remains of the dials on the back face, and reasonable, appropriate gearage to fulfill the functions was proposed, and is generally accepted.^[5][8][63]

Proposed gear schemes[edit]

Because of the large space between the mean Sun gear and the front of the case and the size of and mechanical features on the mean Sun gear it is very likely that the mechanism contained further gearing that either has been lost in or subsequent to the shipwreck or was removed before being loaded onto the ship.^[6] This lack of evidence and nature of the front part of the mechanism has led to numerous attempts to emulate what the Greeks of the period would have done and, of course, because of the lack of evidence many solutions have been put forward.

Michael Wright was the first person to design and build a model with not only the known mechanism, but also, with his emulation of a potential planetarium system. He suggested that along with the lunar anomaly, adjustments would have been made for the deeper, more basic solar anomaly (known as the "first anomaly"). He included pointers for this "true sun", Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, in addition to the known "mean sun" (current time) and lunar pointers.^[6]

Evans, Carman, and Thorndike published a solution with significant differences from Wright's.^[61] Their proposal centred on what they observed as irregular spacing of the inscriptions on the front dial face, which to them seemed to indicate an off-centre sun indicator arrangement; this would simplify the mechanism by removing the need to simulate the solar anomaly. They also suggested that rather than accurate planetary indication (rendered impossible by the offset inscriptions) there would be simple dials for each individual planet showing information such as key events in the cycle of planet, initial and final appearances in the night sky, and apparent direction changes. This system would lead to a much simplified gear system, with much reduced forces and complexity, as compared to Wright's model.^[61]

Their proposal used simple meshed gear trains and accounted for the previously unexplained 63 toothed gear in fragment D. They proposed two face plate layouts, one with evenly spaced dials, and another with a gap in the top of the face to account for criticism regarding their not using the apparent fixtures on the b1 gear. They proposed that rather than bearings and pillars for gears and axles, they simply held weather and seasonal icons to be displayed through a window.^[61]

In a paper published in 2012 Carman, Thorndike, and Evans also proposed a system of epicyclic gearing with pin and slot followers.^[64]

Freeth and Jones published their proposal in 2012 after extensive research and work. They came up with a compact and feasible solution to the question of planetary indication. They also propose indicating the solar anomaly (that is, the sun's apparent position in the zodiac dial) on a separate pointer from the date pointer, which indicates the mean position of the Sun, as well as the date on the month dial. If the two dials are synchronised correctly, their front panel display is essentially the same as Wright's. Unlike Wright's model however, this model has not been built physically, and is only a 3-D computer model.^[6]

The system to synthesise the solar anomaly is very similar to that used in Wright's proposal. Three gears, one fixed in the centre of the b1 gear and attached to the Sun spindle, the second fixed on one of the spokes (in their proposal the one on the bottom left) acting as an idle gear, and the final positioned next to that one, the final gear is fitted with an offset pin and, over said pin, an arm with a slot that in turn, is attached to the sun spindle, inducing anomaly as the mean Sun wheel turns.^[6]

The inferior planet mechanism includes the Sun (treated as a planet in this context), Mercury, and Venus.^[6] For each of the three systems there is an epicyclic gear whose axis is mounted on b1, thus the basic frequency is the Earth year (as it is, in truth, for epicyclic motion in the Sun and all the planets—excepting only the Moon). Each meshes with a gear grounded to the mechanism frame. Each has a pin mounted, potentially on an extension of one side of the gear that enlarges the gear, but doesn't interfere with the teeth; in some cases the needed distance between the gear's centre and the pin is farther than the radius of the gear itself. A bar with a slot along its length extends from the pin toward the appropriate coaxial tube, at whose other end is the object pointer, out in front of the front dials. The bars could have been full gears, although there is no need for the waste of metal, since the only working part is the slot. Also, using the bars avoids interference between the three mechanisms, each of which are set on one of the four spokes of b1. Thus there is one new grounded gear (one was identified in the wreckage, and the second is shared by two of the planets), one gear used to reverse the direction of the sun anomaly, three epicyclic gears and three bars/coaxial tubes/pointers, which would qualify as another gear each. Five gears and three slotted bars in all.^[6]

The superior planet systems—Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn—all follow the same general principle of the lunar anomaly mechanism.^[6]Similar to the inferior systems, each has a gear whose centre pivot is on an extension of b1, and which meshes with a grounded gear. It presents a pin and a centre pivot for the epicyclic gear which has a slot for the pin, and which meshes with a gear fixed to a coaxial tube and thence to the pointer. Each of the three mechanisms can fit within a quadrant of the b1 extension, and they are thus all on a single plane parallel with the front dial plate. Each one uses a ground gear, a driving gear, a driven gear, and a gear/coaxial tube/pointer, thus, twelve gears additional in all.

In total, there are eight coaxial spindles of various nested sizes to transfer the rotations in the mechanism to the eight pointers. So in all, there are 30 original gears, seven gears added to complete calendar functionality, 17 gears and three slotted bars to support the six new pointers, for a grand total of 54 gears, three bars, and eight pointers in Freeth and Jones' design.^[6]

On the visual representation Freeth supplies in the paper, the pointers on the front zodiac dial have small, round identifying stones. He mentions a quote from an ancient papyrus:

...a voice comes to you speaking. Let the stars be set upon the board in accordance with [their] nature except for the Sun and Moon. And let the Sun be golden, the Moon silver, Kronos [Saturn] of obsidian, Ares [Mars] of reddish onyx, Aphrodite [Venus] lapis lazuli veined with gold, Hermes [Mercury] turquoise; let Zeus [Jupiter] be of (whitish?) stone, crystalline (?)...^[65]

Accuracy[edit]

Investigations by Freeth and Jones reveal that their simulated mechanism is not particularly accurate, the Mars pointer being up to 38° off at times (these inaccuracies occur at the nodal points of Mars' retrograde motion, and the error recedes at other locations in the orbit). This is not due to inaccuracies in gearing ratios in the mechanism, but rather to inadequacies in the Greek theory of planetary movements. The accuracy could not have been improved until first Ptolemy put forth his Planetary Hypotheses in the second half of the second century AD (particularly adding the concept of the equant to his theory) and then finally by the introduction of Kepler's Second Law in the early 17th century.^[6]

In short, the Antikythera Mechanism was a machine designed to predict celestial phenomena according to the sophisticated astronomical theories current in its day, the sole witness to a lost history of brilliant engineering, a conception of pure genius, one of the great wonders of the ancient world—but it didn't really work very well!^[6]

In addition to theoretical accuracy, there is the matter of mechanical accuracy. Freeth and Jones note that the inevitable "looseness" in the mechanism due to the hand-built gears, with their triangular teeth and the frictions between gears, and in bearing surfaces, probably would have swamped the finer solar and lunar correction mechanisms built into it:

Though the engineering was remarkable for its era, recent research indicates that its design conception exceeded the engineering precision of its manufacture by a wide margin—with considerable cumulative inaccuracies in the gear trains, which would have cancelled out many of the subtle anomalies built into its design.^[6][66]

While the device itself may have struggled with inaccuracies due to the triangular teeth being hand-made, the calculations used and the technology implemented to create the elliptical paths of the planets and retrograde motion of the Moon and Mars by using a clockwork-type gear train with the addition of a pin-and-slot epicyclic mechanism predated that of the first known clocks found in antiquity in Medieval Europe by more than 1000 years.^[67] Archimedes' development of the approximate value of pi and his theory of centres of gravity along with the steps he made towards developing the calculus^[68] all suggest that the Greeks had access to more than enough mathematical knowledge beyond that of just Babylonian algebra in order to be able to model the elliptical nature of planetary motion.

Of special delight to physicists, the Moon mechanism uses a special train of bronze gears, two of them linked with a slightly offset axis, to indicate the position and phase of the moon. As is known today from Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion, the moon travels at different speeds as it orbits the Earth, and this speed differential is modeled by the Antikythera Mechanism, even though the ancient Greeks were not aware of the actual elliptical shape of the orbit.^[69]

Similar devices in ancient literature[edit]

Cicero's De re publica, a 1st-century BC philosophical dialogue, mentions two machines that some modern authors consider as some kind of planetarium or orrery, predicting the movements of the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets known at that time. They were both built by Archimedes and brought to Rome by the Roman general Marcus Claudius Marcellus after the death of Archimedes at the siege of Syracuse in 212 BC. Marcellus had great respect for Archimedes and one of these machines was the only item he kept from the siege (the second was placed in the Temple of Virtue). The device was kept as a family heirloom, and Cicero has Philus (one of the participants in a conversation that Cicero imagined had taken place in a villa belonging to Scipio Aemilianus in the year 129 BC) saying that Gaius Sulpicius Gallus (consul with Marcellus's nephew in 166 BC, and credited by Pliny the Elder as the first Roman to have written a book explaining solar and lunar eclipses) gave both a "learned explanation" and a working demonstration of the device.

Pappus of Alexandria stated that Archimedes had written a now lost manuscript on the construction of these devices entitled On Sphere-Making.^[71][72] The surviving texts from the Library of Alexandria describe many of his creations, some even containing simple drawings. One such device is his odometer, the exact model later used by the Romans to place their mile markers (described by Vitruvius, Heron of Alexandria and in the time of Emperor Commodus).^[73] The drawings in the text appeared functional, but attempts to build them as pictured had failed. When the gears pictured, which had square teeth, were replaced with gears of the type in the Antikythera mechanism, which were angled, the device was perfectly functional.^[74] Whether this is an example of a device created by Archimedes and described by texts lost in the burning of the Library of Alexandria, or if it is a device based on his discoveries, or if it has anything to do with him at all, is debatable.

If Cicero's account is correct, then this technology existed as early as the 3rd century BC. Archimedes' device is also mentioned by later Roman era writers such asLactantius (Divinarum Institutionum Libri VII), Claudian (In sphaeram Archimedes), and Proclus (Commentary on the first book of Euclid's Elements of Geometry) in the 4th and 5th centuries.

Cicero also said that another such device was built "recently" by his friend Posidonius, "... each one of the revolutions of which brings about the same movement in the Sun and Moon and five wandering stars [planets] as is brought about each day and night in the heavens ..."^[75]

It is unlikely that any one of these machines was the Antikythera mechanism found in the shipwreck since both the devices fabricated by Archimedes and mentioned by Cicero were located in Rome at least 30 years later than the estimated date of the shipwreck, and the third device was almost certainly in the hands of Posidonius by that date. The scientists who have reconstructed the Antikythera mechanism also agree that it was too sophisticated to have been a unique device.

This evidence that the Antikythera mechanism was not unique adds support to the idea that there was an ancient Greek tradition of complex mechanical technology that was later, at least in part, transmitted to the Byzantine and Islamic worlds, where mechanical devices which were complex, albeit simpler than the Antikythera mechanism, were built during the Middle Ages.^[76] Fragments of a geared calendar attached to a sundial, from the 5th or 6th century Byzantine Empire, have been found; the calendar may have been used to assist in telling time.^[77] In the Islamic world, Banū Mūsā's Kitab al-Hiyal, or Book of Ingenious Devices, was commissioned by the Caliph of Baghdad in the early 9th century AD. This text described over a hundred mechanical devices, some of which may date back to ancient Greek texts preserved in monasteries. A geared calendar similar to the Byzantine device was described by the scientist al-Biruni around 1000, and a surviving 13th-century astrolabe also contains a similar clockwork device.^[77] It is possible that this medieval technology may have been transmitted to Europe and contributed to the development of mechanical clocks there.^[23]

Popular culture[edit]

On 17 May 2017, Google marked the 115th anniversary of the discovery with a Doodle.^[78][79]

As of 2012, the Antikythera mechanism was displayed as part of a temporary exhibition about the Antikythera Shipwreck,^[80] accompanied by reconstructions made by Ioannis Theofanidis, Derek de Solla Price, Michael Wright, the Thessaloniki University and Dionysios Kriaris. Other reconstructions are on display at the American Computer Museum in Bozeman, Montana, at the Children's Museum of Manhattan in New York, at Astronomisch-Physikalisches Kabinett in Kassel, Germany, and at the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris.

The National Geographic documentary series Naked Science had an episode dedicated to the Antikythera Mechanism entitled "Star Clock BC" that aired on 20 January 2011.^[81] A documentary, The World's First Computer, was produced in 2012 by the Antikythera mechanism researcher and film-maker Tony Freeth.^[82] In 2012 BBC Four aired The Two-Thousand-Year-Old Computer;^[83] it was also aired on 3 April 2013 in the United States on NOVA, the PBS science series, under the name Ancient Computer.^[84] It documents the discovery and 2005 investigation of the mechanism by the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project.

A fully functioning Lego reconstruction of the Antikythera mechanism was built in 2010 by hobbyist Andy Carrol, and featured in a short film produced by Small Mammal in 2011.^[85] Several exhibitions have been staged worldwide,^[86] leading to the main "Antikythera shipwreck" exhibition at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece.

A fictionalised version of the device was a central plot point in the film Stonehenge Apocalypse (2010), where it was used as the artefact that saved the world from impending doom.^[87] Erich von Däniken, in his 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?, presented it as one of the many "evidences" of ancient aliens visiting earth and leaving behind technology.^{[citation needed]}

***************

"Every nation is proud of his spiritual possession. But the Greek race standing taller than any other, because ithas the merit to be the mother of all civilization. "

Ulrich von Wilamowitz Mðllendorf, (1848-1931), German philologist, a leading interpreter of the ancient Greek civilization.

Whenever we speak of ancient Greece and the achievements of their civilization, we inevitably find ourselves asking the question “Why the Greeks?” What was it that led this numerically small people of the Mediterranean to emerge first from the Archaic stage, in which all other ancient peoples were at a standstill, and strive towards the accomplishments of the Classical period?

To explain the singularity of ancient Greek civilization, we identify something that no other people had at the time as the baseline value of the ancient Greeks: the capacity to question. That is to say, while the predominant values of other peoples could be summed up in the view that “we must hand down to our children the world we inherited from our forefathers,” the ancient Greeks were the first to challenge this perception, by submitting to judgment those ideologies and convictions that had been passed on to them. This is the common starting point for philosophy and democracy.

But such questioning at the time, unlike today, was far from the norm; it could not have appeared on its own, as it presupposes an inner tendency of people to wish to surpass certain limits. And this disposition for transcendence goes hand-in-hand with the element of competition: the desire to be tested, to confront, change, overturn and improve. In such a context, extrapolating our thoughts, one could say that a key concept for understanding and explaining ancient Greek civilization is the idea of agon (struggle, contest, competition).

Thus, questioning and agon were part of a single viewpoint, an overall life stance, which pervaded all manifestations of ancient Greek life, permeated all activities and was the driving force behind all expression of culture. In ancient Greek society, the concept of agon underlay the view that anything can be achieved as the result of effort, healthy rivalry and noble competition.

Often called the "birthplace of civilisation", Ancient Greece heralded numerous advances in philosophy, science, engineering and mathematics which have shaped our understanding of the modern world.

Western civilization has been influenced by many cultures, but his birth took place in ancient Greece. Apart from philosophers such as Aristotle and Socrates, Olympian gods, the beginnings of democracy and conquerors such as Alexander the Great, Greece brought as a contribution to mankind cool ideas that enriched the art of architecture and construction.

*****************

Heritage of history reflected in these postage 1890-1940

*****************

01. [ ENGLISH ] The Antikythera Mechanism -The BEST COLLECTION of PODCASTS and YOUTUBE VIDEOS for

for more information please visit the following web page

( please using the right click of your mouse, and Open Link in Next Private Window, )

The Antikythera Mechanism - The BEST COLLECTION of PODCASTS and YOUTUBE VIDEOS for

********************

==============

The Mystery of the 2,000-Year-Old Ancient Computer Has Just Been Solved

The world’s most ancient computer, Antikythera mechanism, has long been puzzling researchers.

Who created it and most importantly, for what reason? It seems that after years of research, this mystery was finally solved. But first of all, let’s take a look at a brief history of the Antikythera mechanism.

The World’s Most Ancient Computer

The Antikythera Mechanism has been studied for more than a century. This sophisticated device, which is thought to be the world’s first computer, was found in a shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, Greece, in 1901.

The analysis of the mechanism along with flasks, jewelry, coins and statues recovered in the shipwreck showed that the items dated back to 100-150 B.C.

Since then, researchers have been closely studying the Antikythera mechanism, trying to figure out what its use was. It was suggested that it served the ancient Greeks as an astronomical calculator.

New Findings

A recent research by an international group of scientists sheds new light on the Antikythera mechanism and the purpose it was created for.

Giannis Bitsakis, physicist and historian of science and technology at the University of Athens, presented the results of the 10-year research at a conference which took place in the Historical Library of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation in Piraeus, on June 9, 2016.

The new data obtained from the deciphered mechanism’s inscriptions reveal a whole universe hidden in the gears of the ancient device.

It’s now no doubt that this extremely precise ancient computer with its aligned wheels, spokes and cogs was used to predict eclipses and track the movements of planets and stars.

Deciphering the Device’s Inscriptions

Until 1972, about 923 letters and numbers from the mechanism’s inscriptions were decoded. The new research made it possible to decipher 3,400 characters on the total of 82 fragments of the ancient computer.

The research team managed to figure out whole sentences that are a sort of a manual for the device and reveal how it works.

How the Antikythera Mechanism Works

Incredible Discoveries

On one side of the device, there is a handle or a knob which initiates the whole system. If you turn the handle, the pointers in the front and rear sides of the mechanism start to rotate, revealing the movements of the Moon and planets. You choose a date, and the mechanism shows the astronomical phenomena that occur on that day.

Moreover, the movements of the planets are directly linked to specific observation sites, which suggests that the device was meant to be used in more than one location. There is also a link with the sports events of the ancient world, such as the Olympic Games and the Isthmian Games.

As Bitsakis said, the device basically does the same thing we are doing with the help of computers today – calculating the past and future eclipses and other celestial events. Only that the Antikythera Mechanism was able to do it more than 2000 years ago…

Xenophon Mousas, professor of astrophysics at the University of Athens, went on to say that the Antikythera Mechanism paved the way to our whole civilization and all the technology we have today.

The only thing is clear – this amazing ancient computer is another example to show how advanced our ancestors actually were. Hopefully, further research will decipher the rest of the mechanism’s inscriptions and will reveal more fascinating facts about this remarkable device.

Copyright © 2012-2019 Learning Mind. All rights reserved.

==========

Home » Technology » 2,000 Year Old Computer Discovered In Shipwreck

2,000 Year Old Computer Discovered In Shipwreck

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai in Technology // 0 Comments

It appears that the advent of computing began before the birth of Christ, over 2000 years ago, after the discovery of a small bronze mechanism under the sea off Crete.

The Antikythera mechanism is thought to be the first ever programmable computer, and the oldest computer in existence.

Yahoo News reports:

Thanks to an intricate series of gears and dials, the mechanism could be used as a calendar, to track the phases of the moon, and to predict eclipses. It’s an object out of time: no other artefact as complex was built during the thousand years after the mechanism’s creation–that we know of.

The Antikythera mechanism was named after the shipwreck on which it was discovered. Having sunk to the bottom of the sea in the first century BCE taking the mechanism with it, the shipwreck lay undisturbed until 1900, when a group of Greek sponge divers discovered it and began bringing its treasures to the surface.

After the death of one diver and two others becoming paralysed, operations to recover the artefacts were brought to a halt, but not before statues, ceramics, and the mechanism itself were brought up.

In 1953 and 1976, marine explorer Jacques Cousteau led the next expeditions to the wreck, bringing an assortment of objects, including more statues, coins, and gemstones. Due to the depth of the wreck and the diving technology of the period, divers could only spend a handful of minutes investigating the ship at a time or risk the bends that proved fatal to the first expedition.

Now, after time and technology has moved on, the Greek government invited a team from theWoods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), headed by Dr. Brendan Foley, to begin the first significant excavation of the wreck since the Frenchman’s over 40 years ago. If Cousteau and his team made sprints to the Antikythera, the WHOI exploration is set to be more of a marathon.

“We’ve been taking this steady incremental approach to the shipwreck, building the foundation of knowledge about it, then posing specific research questions, trying to answer them, and seeing what the next phase brings. When we first got to Antikythera in 2012, one of the questions we had was, does the island hold a whole lot of submerged cultural resources or is this the only shipwreck out there?” Foley said.

Investigators had only scratched the surface of the Antikythera in the last nearly two thousand years. A second wreck–mentioned in passing by Cousteau’s team but never really explored–had been keeping the first, better-explored ship company all these years, practically untouched.

Foley team set about circumnavigating the island of Antikythera, off whose coast the wreck lay, carrying out technical dives over a period of eight days, where they mapped everything human-made from the sea’s surface down to its floor, 45 meters below.

When Cousteau’s team had spotted the second wreck, they saw amphorae that looked probably Roman in origin–meaning the wreck could date from any time up to the fourth century BCE.

“We were the first archaeologists to see this [second] site and immediately we recognised that it had the exact same ceramics as the treasure wreck just up the coast” where the mechanism had been found, said Foley. The similarities between the two wrecks raised questions. Was the second wreck, dubbed Antikythera B, another ship that had sunk around the same time as the first Antikythera wreck? A second ship travelling in convoy with the Antikythera? Or something else entirely?

The debris trail stretching the 300 meters between the two ships looked to be continuous, suggesting that the two wreck sites were part of one larger ship that had split into two parts. Foley’s team will be testing the hypothesis over the next few visits to the site, using technology to help them determine the true origins of the second wreck.

As it has every year since since 2012, the team returned to Antikythera this summer to probe the wreck further, examining the area between the two wrecks and using both human divers and robots.

The team is using an autonomous underwater vehicle equipped with stereo cameras. Using an algorithm called SLAM (simultaneous localisation and mapping), the imagery from the stereo cameras can be knitted together to make an extremely precise map of the seafloor. During a few days in June, the robot created 10,500 square meters of map, with a resolution of 2mm. A separate remotely operated vehicle (ROV) carrying metal detecting equipment is also being used to spot hints of bronze or iron-carrying objects lying in the water.

Information from the ROV will be overlaid on top of the data from the 3D map generated by the autonomous underwater vehicle to build up a heat map of where the team should direct their excavation efforts when they return to the site later this summer.

By focusing excavation efforts on areas that show a higher density of metal, the excavations could potentially turn up more fragments of the Antikythera mechanism (only half of the system has been recovered to date). While such a discovery would generate headlines, tiny flecks of lead may have equally fascinating stories to tell.

If any lead artefacts are recovered, the team will take microscopic samples from them and send them away for spectroscopic analysis. By comparing the lead’s isotope profile to other samples from around the world, the researchers will be able to hone in on where the ship was built, or where it sailed from.

“One of the goals will be to virtually excavate and re-excavate the site in the computer afterwards.” Brendan Foley

Potentially, more of the bronze statues recovered on previous trips–hands, feet and other fragments have been found and are on display in the National Museum in Athens–could be identified through the metal heat map.

Finding more of the statues “would be quite a big contribution to art history and culture but we also expect that in amongst the fragments of the statues will be other amazing things. What kind of things? We can’t even imagine. The possibilities are boundless. This ship sank carrying the finest material that was available in the entire eastern Mediterranean in the first century BC,” Foley said.

Like the mechanism that it carried, the Antikythera is unique for its time period. Its hull planks are some of thickest seen in antiquity, indicating the true size of the ship could be over 200 feet in length, putting it in the same ballpark as HMS Victory, the warship commanded by Admiral Lord Nelson during the Battle of Trafalgar–some 1700 years after the Antikythera sailed.

Why was the Anitkythera so large? The only other known ships of the era that were larger were the pleasure barges that the Roman emperor Caligula used to cruise across Lake Nemi. The Antikythera, however, may have been built for a mix of business and pleasure.

One hypothesis is that the Antikythera may both have carried early tourists and freight, thanks to the huge bronze and marble statues it transported as cargo.

If the ship had to carry statues, some up to three meters tall, they’d have to be packed well to prevent damage in transit. It’s been posited that sand or straw could be used as the packing material, but Foley suggests grain could be a more likely candidate: not only would the statues be protected but the grain could be sold on at the Antikythera’s destination, making it a far more economical option.

“The ancient grain carriers weren’t just cargo ships, they were more like RMS Titanic. They were more like luxury cruise liners,” Foley said.

“The couple of extant literary references to grain carriers refer to these floating palaces: mosaic floors, libraries, and amazing cabins, well appointed for the passengers–the 200 or 300 passengers that could be aboard from Rome to Egypt or the Black Sea. They would be sort of the world’s first tourists. As the ship was loaded up with grain, which could take a couple of months, they would tour around and then get back on the ship at the end of the season.”

Any artefacts, such as mosaic pieces, would lend credence to the theory, but more evidence could come from the bones of passengers that died when the ship sank.

“There’s other circumstantial evidence that points to this being the first grain carrier ever discovered, and that’s the luxury goods that were carried onboard and also the presence of skeletal remains of a young woman,” said Foley.

Remains of four people on the wreck have been found so far, and more may still be on the wreck. Should other bones be recovered, they will be subject to a vigorous recovery procedure to make sure there’s no DNA cross-contamination between the dive workers and the bones themselves. All workers on the boat will give cheek swabs to make sure their genetic material can be identified if it ends up on the bones accidentally.

WHOI is now looking for a company that can work with it to analyse the DNA from the bones, perhaps hinting at where those on the ship–be they sailors, high-roller tourists, or slaves–originated from.

The WHOI scientists have already got a handle on other aspects of the travellers’ lives, from their hygiene habits to their diets, thanks to the ceramic storage vessels found on the wreck site. The first Antikythera wreck has already yielded amphora, the “55 gallon drum of antiquity”, table jugs known as lagynos, and unguentaria–the small bottles that would hold medicines, cosmetics or perfumes.

“With all of these types of ceramic artefacts, they’re empty now, but we can take swabs and using police forensic techniques we can pull ancient trace DNA from the ceramic matrix of the original contents, down to the species level,” Foley said.

It’s not uncommon to find ancient ready meals in some of the jars–mixes of legumes or meats, herbs and spices–but the information from the jars can be far more valuable, giving an indication of what commodities were being traded between what locations, enabling archaeologists to get a better insight into the economy of a region than historical sources alone can provide.

“It’s fun for us,” said Foley, “because we feel like we’ve opened up a whole new vista on the past, and we can generate hard data on these early economies. What are they actually importing and exporting, what are they producing, what are they consuming? And it’s all right there in these ostensibly empty jars.”

Even traces of the ancient grain may still be hidden in the sands around the wrecks for those with the right tech to find it. While the grain is long gone, it will have decomposed to leave characteristic starches and structures called phytoliths, which can be detected with a powerful enough microscope.

WHOI’s team returned to the wreck site in the summer of 2015 with their metallic heat maps to begin the process of finding out if the Antikythera has more secrets go give up.

“We’re always analysing the data and updating the data, so this year, those wonderfully precise data from the maps produced by the robots, we’ll have those on iPads. Those iPads will be in housings and we’ll have interactive maps with us as we’re diving on the site,” Foley said.

The divers move through the water, iPad in hand, looking for the points of interest from the heat maps, and checking their position against those locations as they go. They carry handheld metal detectors too, to spot any metal artefacts buried under the seafloor surface, and are accompanied by professional photographers and videographers, as well as using the iPad cameras to gather snaps too.

“All those data at the end of the day are incorporated into the maps. In the best vision we have of this, we’ll have have a data manager incorporating everything we’re doing daily,” said Foley. “One of the goals will be to virtually excavate and re-excavate the site in the computer afterwards, by using our series of images over the trench we’re digging to be able to take it down and refill it in the computer afterwards, so we make sure we’re absolutely documenting every action we take.”

The divers use rebreathers to allow them to investigate the wrecks at depths that would normally prove fatal to humans in a matter of minutes. By keeping the gases they breath in and out inside a closed loop, adding oxygen where necessary and cleaning out the carbon dioxide, divers are able to spend a far longer time on site than they would be able to with conventional scuba gear.

“Putting humans in the water is always the option of last resort because we have to eat, we have to poop, we get tired and we’re really not that efficient underwater. With the rebreather, we increase that efficiency, but it’s still we’re only want to put people down when there’s no other way to do the job,” Foley said.

That’s why today’s underwater excavations will typically rely heavily on robots. They can spend far longer underwater and go to far deeper depths than humans. However, often they’re used as observers, with the most difficult work still done by humans.

Last year, WHOI experimented with a fusion of the two: an Iron Man-like exosuit. The exosuit is a small wearable submarine that keeps the diver’s air at the same atmospheric pressure as it is in the water.

While the WHOI team didn’t use the experimental suit for any work on the wreck site, it was tested out on the vicinity of the Antikythera, and the organisation is now considering whether to plough ahead with a development program.

“You can stay for hours and hours doing work or observing work, and then be winched right back up to the surface,” said Foley. “You won’t have to pay a decompression penalty. You just jump out of the suit and go have a cup of coffee.”

Foley called the oragnisation’s August 2015 diving and excavating trip “the most intensive period of activity on the Antikythera ever.” The results of the landmark excavation are still being revealed.

==============

The world’s oldest computer is still revealing its secrets

By Sarah Kaplan June 14 , 2016-06-16

An international team of archaeologists, astronomers and historians have spent the past 10 years deciphering the many mysteries of the Antikythera Mechanism, the world's first mechanical computer. (Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)

Item 15087 wasn't much to look at, particularly compared to other wonders uncovered from the shipwreck at Antikythera, Greece, in 1901. The underwater excavation revealed gorgeous bronze sculptures, ropes of decadent jewelry and a treasure trove of antique coins.

Amid all that splendor, who could have guessed that a shoebox-size mangled bronze machine, its inscriptions barely legible, its gears calcified and corroded, would be the discovery that could captivate scientists for more than a century?

"In this very small volume of messed-up corroded metal you have packed in there enough knowledge to fill several books telling us about ancient technology, ancient science and the way these interacted with the broader culture of the time," said Alexander Jones, a historian of ancient science at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. "It would be hard to dispute that this is the single most information-rich object that has been uncovered by archaeologists from ancient times."

Jones is part of an international team of archaeologists, astronomers and historians who have labored for the past 10 years to decipher the mechanism's many mysteries. The results of their research, including the text of a long explanatory "label" revealed through X-ray analysis, were just published in a special issue of the journal Almagest, which examines the history and philosophy of science.

The findings substantially improve our understanding of the instrument's origins and purpose, Jones said, offering hints at where and by whom the mechanism was made, and how it might have been used. It looks increasingly like a "philosopher's guide to the galaxy," as the Associated Press put it — functioning as a teaching tool, a status symbol and an elaborate celebration of the wonders of ancient science and technology.

[The key to these ancient riddles may lie in a father's love for his dead son]

In its prime, about 2,100 years ago, the Antikythera (an-ti-KEE-thur-a) Mechanism was a complex, whirling, clockwork instrument comprising at least 30 bronze gears bearing thousands of interlocking tiny teeth. Powered by a single hand crank, the machine modeled the passage of time and the movements of celestial bodies with astonishing precision. It had dials that counted the days according to at least three different calendars, and another that could be used to calculate the timing of the Olympics. Pointers representing the stars and planets revolved around its front face, indicating their position in relation to Earth. A tiny, painted model of the moon rotated on a spindly axis, flashing black and white to mimic the real moon's waxing and waning.

The sum of all these moving parts was far and away the most sophisticated piece of machinery found from ancient Greece. Nothing like it would appear again until the 14th century, when the earliest geared clocks began to be built in Europe. For the first half century after its discovery, researchers believed that the Antikythera Mechanism had to be something simpler than it seemed, like an astrolabe. How could the Greeks have developed the technology needed to create something so precise, so perfect — only to have it vanish for 1,400 years?

But then Derek de Solla Price, a polymath physicist and science historian at Yale University, traveled to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens to take a look at the enigmatic piece of machinery. In a 1959 paper in Scientific American, he posited that the Antikythera Mechanism was actually the world's first known "computer," capable of calculating astronomical events and illustrating the workings of the universe. Over the next two and a half decades, he described in meticulous detail how the mechanism's diverse functions could be elucidated from the relationships among its intricately interlocked gears.

"Nothing like this instrument is preserved elsewhere. Nothing comparable to it is known from any ancient scientific text or literary allusion," he wrote.

===

That wasn't completely accurate — Cicero wrote of a instrument made by the first century BCE scholar Posidonius of Rhodes that "at each revolution reproduces the same motions of the Sun, the Moon and the five planets that take place in the heavens every day and night." But it was true that the existence of the Antikythera Mechanism challenged all of scientists' assumptions about what the ancient Greeks were capable of.

"It is a bit frightening to know that just before the fall of their great civilization the ancient Greeks had come so close to our age, not only in their thought, but also in their scientific technology," Price said.

Still, the degree of damage to the ancient plates and gears meant that many key questions about the the instrument couldn't be answered with the technology of Price's day. Many of the internal workings were clogged or corroded, and the inscriptions were faded or covered up by plates that had been crushed together.

[Broken pottery reveals the sheer devastation caused by the Black Death]

Enter X-ray scanning and imaging technology, which have finally become powerful enough to allow researchers to peer beneath the machine's calcified surfaces. A decade ago, a diverse group of scientists teamed up to form the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project (AMRP), which would take advantage of that new capability. Their initial results, which illuminated some of the complex inner workings of the machine, were exciting enough to persuade Jones to jump on board.

Fluent in Ancient Greek, he was able to translate the hundreds of new characters revealed in the advanced imaging process.

"Before, we had scraps of the text that was hiding inside these fragments, but there was still a lot of noise," he said. By combining X-ray images with the impressions left on material that had stuck to the original bronze, "it was like a double jigsaw puzzle that we were able to use for a much clearer reading."

The main discovery was a more than 3,500-word explanatory text on the main plate of the instrument. It's not quite an instruction manual — speaking to reporters, Jones's colleague Mike Edmunds compared it to the long label beside an item in a museum display, according to the AP.

“It’s not telling you how to use it. It says, ‘What you see is such and such,’ rather than, ‘Turn this knob and it shows you something,’ " he explained.

An undated photo released by the Greek Ministry of Culture shows a diver wearing a robotic Exosuit while exploring the famous Antikythera shipwreck. (EPA/GREEK MINISTRY OF CULTURE)

Other newly translated excerpts included descriptions of a calendar unique to the northern Greek city of Corinth and tiny orbs — now believed lost to the sandy sea bottom — that once moved across the instrument's face in perfect simulation of the true motion of the five known planets, as well as a mark on the dial that gave the dates of various athletic events, including a relatively minor competition that was held in the city of Rhodes.

That indicates that the mechanism may have been built in Rhodes — a theory boosted by the fact that much of the pottery uncovered by the shipwreck was characteristic of that city. The craftsmanship of the instrument, and the two distinct sets of handwriting evident in the inscriptions, makes Jones believe that it was a team effort from a small workshop that may have produced similar items. True, no other Antikythera Mechanisms have been found, but that doesn't mean they never existed. Plenty of ancient bronze artifacts were melted down for scrap (indeed, the mechanism itself may have included material from other objects).

It's likely that this particular mechanism and the associated Antikythera treasures were en route to a Roman port, where they'd be sold to wealthy nobles who collected rare antiques and intellectual curiosities to adorn their homes.

Visualizations showing how researchers enhanced images of the eroded inscriptions on the Antikythera Mechanism. (Antikythera Mechanism Research Project)

The elegant complexity of the mechanism – and the use its makers designed it for – are emblematic of the values of the ancient world: For example, a dial that predicts the occurrence of eclipses to the precision of a day also purports to forecast what the color of the moon and weather in the region will be that day. To modern scientists, the three phenomena are entirely distinct from one another — eclipses depend on the predictable movements of the sun, moon and planets, the color of the moon on the scattering of light in Earth's atmosphere, and the weather on difficult-to-track local conditions. Astronomers may be able to forecast an eclipse years in advance, but there's no scientific way to know the weather that far out (just ask our friends at the Capital Weather Gang).

But to an ancient Greek, the three concerns were inextricably linked. It was believed that an eclipse could portend a famine, an uprising, a nation's fate in war.

"Things like eclipses were regarded as having ominous significance," Jones said. It would have made perfect sense to tie together "these things that are purely astronomical with things that are more cultural, like the Olympic games, and calendars, which is astronomy in service of religion and society, with astrology, which is pure religion."

That may go some way toward explaining the strange realization Price made more than 50 years ago: The ancient Greeks came dazzlingly close to inventing clockwork centuries sooner than really happened. That they chose to utilize the technology not to mark the minutes, but to plot out their place in the universe, shows just how deeply they regarded the significance of celestial events in their lives.

In a single instrument, Jones said, "they were trying to gather a whole range of things that were part of the Greek experience of the cosmos."

===

for more information,please visit the following web page ...

( please using the right click of your mouse, and Open Link in Next Private Window, )

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/06/14/the-worlds-oldest-computer-is-still-revealing-its-secrets/

==========

Greek Scientists Call Antikythera Mechanism ‘World’s First Computer’

The overall analysis of the inscriptions found inside the Antikythera Mechanism was presented on Thursday by the study group of the enigmatic object.

In an event held at the Katerina Laskaridis Historical Foundation Library. The findings are the result of an international scientific research effort over the past 10 years.

http://dlib.nyu.edu/awdl/isaw/isaw-papers/4/

==========

January 23, 2007

from Impearls Website

Antikythera Mechanism as it appears today, with x-rays superimposed;

from Jo Marchant's 'In search of lost time' (Nature)

A recent issue of the British scientific journal Nature (dated 2006-11-30) has several fascinating articles including a research report on the Antikythera Mechanism, in which a battery of powerful techniques including x-ray computed tomography, high-resolution surface examination together with much painstaking analysis have, more than a century after its discovery at the bottom of the sea, begun to reveal the fascinating secrets of this ancient device.

As Jo Marchant puts it in her companion piece “In search of lost time”: ¹

It looks like something from another world — nothing like the classical statues and vases that fill the rest of the echoing hall. Three flat pieces of what looks like green, flaky pastry are supported in perspex cradles.

Within each fragment, layers of something that was once metal have been squashed together, and are now covered in calcareous accretions and various corrosions, from the whitish tin oxide to the dark bluish green of copper chloride. This thing spent 2,000 years at the bottom of the sea before making it to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, and it shows.

But it is the details that take my breath away. Beneath the powdery deposits, tiny cramped writing is visible along with a spiral scale; there are traces of gear-wheels edged with jagged teeth. Next to the fragments an X-ray shows some of the object’s internal workings. It looks just like the inside of a wristwatch.

This is the Antikythera Mechanism. These fragments contain at least 30 interlocking gear-wheels, along with copious astronomical inscriptions. Before its sojourn on the sea bed, it computed and displayed the movement of the Sun, the Moon and possibly the planets around Earth, and predicted the dates of future eclipses. It’s one of the most stunning artefacts we have from classical antiquity.

No earlier geared mechanism of any sort has ever been found. Nothing close to its technological sophistication appears again for well over a millennium, when astronomical clocks appear in medieval Europe. It stands as a strange exception, stripped of context, of ancestry, of descendants.

Considering how remarkable it is, the Antikythera Mechanism has received comparatively scant attention from archaeologists or historians of science and technology, and is largely unappreciated in the wider world. A virtual reconstruction of the device, published by Mike Edmunds and his colleagues in this week’s Nature (see page 587), may help to change that.

With the help of pioneering three-dimensional images of the fragments’ innards, the authors present something close to a complete picture of how the device worked, which in turn hints at who might have been responsible for building it.

Now that close to a comprehensive understanding of the Antikythera Mechanism has emerged from these studies, the picture of the revealed machine is astounding:

Rear side, sideways view of reconstruction of Antikythera Mechanism;

from Francois Charette, 'High tech from Ancient Greece' (Nature)

Schematic diagram of gear trains, as per Price and Wright;

from T. Freeth et al. 'Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator

known as the Antikythera Mechanism' (Nature)

Diagram showing position of principal dials and inscriptions;

from T. Freeth et al. 'Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator

known as the Antikythera Mechanism' (Nature)

Reading the research report’s description of its analysis of the dials and inscriptions on the device is almost like reading an alternate history novel (a sequel to a book by L. Sprague de Camp, say, The Glory that Was), where science took off in antiquity and all this arcane technology that results is accompanied by an impressive Ancient Greek technical vocabulary… except that this is our timeline.

Prior to historians and archaeologists’ realization of what the Antikythera mechanism really was, scholars had no reason to think that ancients were aware of the principle of clockwork-like complex gearing at all.

Via the 1^st century b.c. Roman architect writer Vitruvius, we know that simple dual gearing, for directional change, was in use following this time frame in a type of water-powered mill. There are still no instances known of the use of gears of any type predating the Antikythera mechanism, however, nor anything of comparable sophistication for beyond a thousand years after.

A revealing excerpt from the Nature report, “Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism,” by Tony Freeth (Cardiff University, School of Physics and Astronomy), et al., reads as follows: ²

Named after its place of discovery in 1901 in a Roman shipwreck, the Antikythera Mechanism is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterwards. Its specific functions have remained controversial because its gears and the inscriptions upon its faces are only fragmentary.

Here we report surface imaging and high-resolution X-ray tomography of the surviving fragments, enabling us to reconstruct the gear function and double the number of deciphered inscriptions. The mechanism predicted lunar and solar eclipses on the basis of Babylonian arithmetic-progression cycles. The inscriptions support suggestions of mechanical display of planetary positions, now lost. In the second century b.c., Hipparchos developed a theory to explain the irregularities of the Moon’s motion across the sky caused by its elliptic orbit.

We find a mechanical realization of this theory in the gearing of the mechanism, revealing an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period.

The bronze mechanism (Fig. 1), probably hand-driven, was originally housed in a wooden-framed case of (uncertain) overall size 315 × 190 × 100 mm (Fig. 2). It had front and back doors, with astronomical inscriptions covering much of the exterior of the mechanism. Our new transcriptions and translations of the Greek texts are given in Supplementary Note “glyphs and inscriptions”. ²

The detailed form of the lettering can be dated to the second half of the second century B.C., implying that the mechanism was constructed during the period 150-100 B.C., slightly earlier than previously suggested. This is consistent with a date of around 80-60 B.C. for the wreck from which the mechanism was recovered by some of the first underwater archaeology.

We are able to complete the reconstruction of the back door inscription with text from fragment E, and characters from fragments A and F (see Fig. 1 legend for fragment nomenclature). The front door is mainly from fragment G.

The text is astronomical, with many numbers that could be related to planetary motions; the word “sterigmos” (ΣΤΗΡΙΓΜΟΣ, translated as “station” or “stationary point”) is found, meaning where a planet’s apparent motion changes direction, and the numbers may relate to planetary cycles. We note that a major aim of this investigation is to set up a data archive to allow non-invasive future research, and access to this will start in 2007. Details will be available on www.antikythera-mechanism.gr ³

The back door inscription mixes mechanical terms about construction (“trunnions,” “gnomon,” “perforations”) with astronomical periods. Of the periods, 223 is the Saros eclipse cycle (seeBox 1 for a brief explanation of astronomical cycles and periods). We discover the inscription “spiral divided into 235 sections,” which is the key to understanding the function of the upper back dial.

The references to “golden little sphere” and “little sphere” probably refer to the front zodiac display for the Sun and Moon — including phase for the latter.

The text near the lower back dial includes “Pharos” and “from south (about/around)… Spain (ΙΣΠΑΝΙΑ) ten.”

These geographical references, together with previous readings of “towards the east,” “west-north-west” and “west-south-west” suggest an eclipse function for the dial, as solar eclipses occur only at limited geographical sites, and winds were often recorded in antiquity with eclipse observations. Possibly this information was added to the mechanism during use.

Turning to the dials themselves, the front dial displays the position of the Sun and Moon in the zodiac, and a corresponding calendar of 365 days that could be adjusted for leap years. Previously, it was suggested that the upper back dial might have five concentric rings with 47 divisions per turn, showing the 235 months of the 19-year Metonic cycle.

A later proposal augments this with the upper subsidiary dial showing the 76-year Callippic cycle. Our optical and X-ray micro-focus computed tomography (CT) imaging confirms these proposals, with 34 scale markings discovered on the upper back dial. On the basis of a statistical analysis analogous to that described for gear tooth counts below, we confirm the 235 total divisions.

We also find from the CT that the subsidiary dial is indeed divided into quadrants, as required for a Callippic dial. In agreement with the back door inscription, we also substantiate the preceptive proposal that the dial is in fact a spiral made from semicircular arcs displaced to centers on the vertical midline. In the CT of fragment B we find a new feature that explains why the dial is a spiral: a “pointer-follower” device (Fig. 3) traveled around the spiral groove to indicate which month (across the five turns of the scale) should be read.

From our CT data of the 48 scale divisions observed in fragments A, E and F, we establish 223 divisions in the four-turn spiral on the lower back dial, the spiral starting at the bottom of the dial. This is the Saros eclipse cycle, whose number is on the back door inscription. The 54-year Exeligmos cycle of three Saros cycles is shown on the lower subsidiary dial.

Between the scale divisions of the Saros dial we have identified 16 blocks of characters, or “glyphs” (see “glyphs and inscriptions”) at intervals of one, five and six months. These are eclipse predictions and contain either Σ for a lunar eclipse (from ΣΕΛΗΝΗ, Moon) or Η for a solar eclipse (from ΗΛΙΟΣ, Sun) or both.

A correlation analysis (analogous to DNA sequence matching) with historic eclipse data (all modern eclipse data and predictions in our work are from this reference) indicates that over a period of 400-1 b.c., the sequence of eclipses marked by the identified glyphs would be exactly matched by 121 possible start dates. The matching only occurs if the lunar month starts at first crescent, and confirms this choice of month start in the mechanism.

The sequences of eclipses can then be used to predict the expected position of glyphs on the whole dial, as seen in Fig. 4. The dial starts and finishes with an eclipse. Although Ptolemy indicates that the Greeks recorded eclipses in the second century b.c., the Babylonian Saros canon is the only known source of sufficient data to construct the dial. […]

Of particular note is the dual use of the large gear, e3, at the back of the mechanism, which has found no use in previous models. In our model, it is powered by m3 as part of a fixed-axis train that turns the Saros and Exeligmos dials for eclipse prediction, and also doubles as the “epicyclic table” for the gears k1, k2.

These are part of the epicyclic gearing that calculates the theory of the irregular motion of the moon, developed by Hipparchos some time between 146 and 128 b.c. (ref. 22) - the “first anomaly,” caused by its elliptical orbit about the Earth. The period of this anomaly is the period from apogee to apogee (the anomalistic month).

To realize this theory, the mean sidereal lunar motion is first calculated by gears on axes c, d and e and this is then fed into the epicyclic system. As explained in Fig. 6, a pin-and-slot device on the epicyclic gears k1 and k2, clearly seen in the CT, provides the variation. This was previously identified, but rejected as a lunar mechanism.

The remarkable purpose of mounting the pin-and-slot mechanism on the gear e3 is to change the period of variation from the sidereal month (that is, the time taken for the moon to orbit the Earth relative to the zodiac), which would occur if k1 and k2 were on fixed axes, to anomalistic month — by carrying the gears epicyclically at a rate that is the difference between the rates of the sidereal and anomalistic months, that is, at the rate of rotation of about 9 years of the Moon’s apogee.

Gears with 53 teeth are awkward to divide. So it may seem surprising that the gearing includes two such gears (f1, l2), whose effects cancel in the train leading to the Saros dial. But the gearing has been specifically designed so that the “epicyclic table” e3 turns at the rate of rotation of the Moon’s apogee — the factor 53 being derived from the calculation of this rotation from the Metonic and Saros cycles, which are the bases for all the prime factors in the tooth counts of the gears.

The establishment of the 53-tooth count of these gears is powerful confirmation of our proposed model of Hipparchos’ lunar theory. The output of this complex system is carried from e6 back through e3 and thence, via e1 and b3, to the zodiac scale on the front dial and the lunar phase mechanism. Our CT confirms the complex structure of axis e that this model entails.

The Antikythera Mechanism shows great economy and ingenuity of design.

It stands as a witness to the extraordinary technological potential of Ancient Greece, apparently lost within the Roman Empire.

Map of the Mediterranean, showing Antikythera area in inset;

from Jo Marchant, 'In search of lost time' (Nature)

Intriguing questions demanded by the mere existence of an ancient device of the sophistication and elegance of the Antikythera mechanism, of course, include where did it come from, and who built it?

The wreck on which the toponymically named mechanism was found, had foundered off the island of Antikythera, lying at the western extremity of the Aegean Sea directly astride important trade routes connecting the Aegean — places like Rhodes, a principal trading entrepot, along with points east and north (e.g., Pergamon) — with the western Mediterranean, most importantly the city of Rome itself.

Given the cargo of luxury goods aboard (originating to the east of the ship’s final resting place), it seems very likely that the vessel was indeed bound west, quite probably for Rome, when it abruptly sank in 42 meters (138 feet) of water.

Where then did the mechanism originate and who might have made it?

A clue is provided by the fact that in addition to the famous mechanism the ship also carried luxury trade goods which have been identified as originating at Rhodes, as well as other goods that are from Pergamon but which may have been transshipped through Rhodes.

As noted before, the Antikythera device itself contains an algorithm built-in to express the “first anomaly” of lunar motion which was worked out in the 2nd century b.c. by the Greek astronomer Hipparchos — perhaps greatest of ancient Greek astronomers; who indeed did much of his work at Rhodes — and on which island afterwards the philosopher Poseidonius (contemporaneously regarded as the most learned man of his age; who did astronomical work himself, and at one point instructed Cicero at Rome) established a school.

Hence the hypothesis that Poseidonius’ school at Rhodes developed the technological traditions — that may have been directly influenced by Hipparchos himself, and which must have taken a good long while to gestate, as the Antikythera mechanism clearly didn't spring whole-cloth out of nowhere — leading to the construction of the machine and others like it; one of which was sent off to Rome.

It never made it, and the rest is (latter day) history.

Diagram of eight-geared lunisolar calendar

from al-Biruni's astrolabe treatise of 996 AD

Beyond its jaw-dropping technology and fascinating provenance, the question of what effect the discovery and decipherment of this ancient technology has on our understanding of history itself, as Jo Marchant observes in her Nature companion piece, is perhaps even more intriguing.

As she notes, prior to the Antikythera device it was believed that the advent of clockwork-type mechanisms in 14th century Medieval Europe represented the invention of this fundamental technology at around something like that time frame.

Since Antikythera, however, a geared 6th century a.d. Byzantine sundial with four surviving gears (and which probably originally incorporated at least eight) has turned up; ^{4, 5} while the Medieval Persian scholar/scientist al-Biruni described a “box of the Moon” that is quite like the Byzantine device. (See at right an illustration of an eight-geared lunisolar calendar from al-Biruni’s astrolabe treatise of 996 a.d.)

Such an augmented astrolabe from 13th century Iran is still extant today. The step from that to the clocks of 14th century Europe is chronologically and technologically short.

Thus, the history of gearing and clockwork is being revolutionized. Instead of originating late in the Medieval era, as previously assumed (in a form we now see as suspiciously like that of the Antikythera mechanism), now it appears likely that the tremendously sophisticated gear-work that we see reflected in this machine continued to survive in some form in the Greco-Roman world, as displayed in the 6^thcentury Byzantine device; from whence it found a refuge somewhere during the early Medieval period — perhaps in the Baghdad Caliphate — and it may well be that (after say the Mongol destruction of Baghdad during the 13th century) this technology thereupon migrated with scholarly refugees and ended up influencing the West’s own technological trajectory a century or so later.

As François Charette observes in his Nature companion piece “High tech from Ancient Greece,” ⁶ all this is not unlike us one fine day discovering that steam engines had actually been invented during the Renaissance, and Newcomen and Watt’s invention of improved steam engines during the 1700’s unbeknownst to us had ultimately derived from that.

Archaeologist Martha Dane looks out over the Martian ruins;

in H. Beam Piper's 'Omnilingual' (Kelly Freas)

An echo with speculative literature is found in the way that the deciphering of the Antikythera mechanism utilized such details as the number of teeth in the assorted gears (unique ratios identifying which heavenly phenomena are being computed or charted on the dials of the machine) along with such things as historic eclipse patterns (the Saros canon) as important indicators of its meaning and function and aids in reconstruction of the design.

This sense of using natural law and natural history as one’s keys to the decipherment, is very much akin to a classic science fiction tale from half a century ago, in which scientists investigating the remains of a disappeared alien race and civilization on their home world (Mars), in attempting to decipher their language — which seemed inherently almost impossible due to lack of a “Rosetta stone” (like the original that assisted in the decipherment of Ancient Egyptian) — ultimately came to realize that science (natural law), knowledge of which was embedded in the technology and writings of the science-savvy aliens, would serve as their universal Rosetta stone.

That story is “Omnilingual” by H. Beam Piper, ⁷ first published just fifty years ago, in the February 1957 (1957-02) issue of the extremely influential science fiction magazine then known as Astounding Science Fiction, altered a few years later to the still-extant name of Analog.

Astounding/Analog for many years was under the inspired editorship of very well-regarded science fiction author John W. Campbell, Jr. — who has since become even better known as the “father of modern science fiction,” as a result of his tutelage and inspiration of a whole generation and host of talented writers — Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, van Vogt, Poul Anderson, the list goes on and on…

Piper’s story, I’d venture to suggest, shows every sign of having profited from Campbell’s famous idea generation process vis-a-vis his authors.

(“Omnilingual” is no longer under copyright today, and can be accessed, with its original Kelly Freas illustrations from Astounding and blurb by John Campbell, at Project Gutenberg.)

The story concludes with the archaeologists reveling in having finally begun comprehending the rudiments of the structure of the Martians’ language, using the periodic table of the elements as a starting point — in the course of which Martha Dane compliments one of her colleagues:

“You said we had to find a bilingual,” she said. “You were right, too.”

“This is better than a bilingual, Martha,” Hubert Penrose said. “Physical science expresses universal facts; necessarily it is a universal language. Heretofore archaeologists have dealt only with pre-scientific cultures.”

As we see with the Antikythera mechanism, one need not go to Mars or Alpha Centauri to encounter a scientific culture in archaeology.

However, one can’t help but wonder…

• • Had any of the scientists who deciphered the Antikythera machine read “Omnilingual,” lo these many years before or at some moment since?

  • Did it influence their work, or even career; did they realize they were retracing the steps, in a sense performing the verification of a scientific hypothesis, which is implicit in the story?

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_antikythera06.htm

==========

Tag: Antikythera mechanism

Video Maps Antikythera Shipwreck and Shows New Discoveries

Daphne Tsagari - Oct 6, 2014

Despite the official attempt to keep a lid on the discoveries of the latest Antikythera shipwreck expedition, some details from a video showing the new discoveries have...

- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/tag/antikythera-mechanism/#sthash.ESZx9oP0.dpuf

==========

Tag: Antikythera mechanism

Antikythera Mechanism Becomes Lego Game

Marianna Tsatsou - Jun 19, 2012

The Antikythera mechanism is regarded to be humanity's oldest computer. It dates back to the early 1st century BC and is designed so that...

- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/tag/antikythera-mechanism/page/2/#sthash.yu5IGTxe.dpuf

*****************

01. [ ENGLISH ] The Antikythera Mechanism -The BEST COLLECTION of PODCASTS and YOUTUBE VIDEOS for

for more information please visit the following web page

( please using the right click of your mouse, and Open Link in Next Private Window, )

The Antikythera Mechanism - The BEST COLLECTION of PODCASTS and YOUTUBE VIDEOS for

********************

************************************************************************

************************************************************************

***************************************************************

WEB RING

----------

and for more information, please switch to the same webpage in English -

( please using the right click of your mouse, and Open Link in Next Private Window, )

The Antikythera Mechanism - The World's Oldest Computer

----------

y para más información, cambie por favor a la misma página web enespañol -

(por favor usando el clic derecho de su ratón, y elvínculo abierto en la ventana privada siguiente,)

El Mecanismo de Antikythera - ordenador más antiguo del mundo

----------

et pour plus d'information, commutez svp à la même page Web en français -

(svp utilisant le droit - clic de votre souris, et le lien ouvert dans la prochaine fenêtreprivée,)

Le mécanisme d'Anticythère - Le plus ancien ordinateur du monde

----------

und zu mehr Information, schalten Sie bitte zur gleichen Webseite auf Deutsch -

(bitte unter Verwendung des Rechtsklicks Ihrer Maus und öffnen Sie Link im Folgenden privatenFenster,)

Der Antikythera-Mechanismus - der älteste Computer der Welt

----------

e per più informazioni, commuti prego alla stessa pagina Web in italiano -

(per favore facendo uso del cliccare con il pulsante destro del mouse del vostro mouse e delcollegamento aperto in finestra privata seguente,)

Il meccanismo di Antikythera - il più vecchio computer del mondo

----------

e para mais informação, comute por favor ao mesmo Web page noportuguês -

(por favor usando o direito - clique de seu rato, e a relação aberta na janela privada seguinte,)

O Mecanismo de Antikythera - computador mais antigo do mundo

----------

και για περισσότερες πληροφορίες, παρακαλώ μεταπηδήστε στην ίδιαιστοσελίδα στα ελληνικά -

( παρακαλώ χρησιμοποιώντας το δεξιό κλικ του mouse, ανοίξτε τον επόμενο σύνδεσμο

( ιστοσελίδα ) σε ξεχωριστό παράθυρο προς τα δεξιά, )

Ο Μηχανισμός των Αντικυθήρων

----------

***************************************************************

***************************************************************

***************************************************************

we WELCOME YOUR ADS, CLASSIFIEDS, ADVERTISING, CLASSIFIED ADS ...

OUR SITE IS YOUR PLACE ...

MAXIMIZE YOUR EXPOSURE BY USING THE HIGHLY EFFECTIVE SERVICES BELOW !

ARE YOU SEARCHING FOR THE PERFECT LOCATION FOR INTERNET ADVERTISING AND PROMOTION ?

Advertise your product or service using our WEB PAGE !

* All Traffic in our site consists of totally unique visitors for FULL CAMPAIGN PERIOD !

* You can DRAMATICALLY IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS

* We offer wide selection of categories to select from ... including Business, Marketing, Shopping, Health, and much more !

* YOU CAN USE OUR SITE TO MARKET ALL OF YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES !

* OUR SITE IS THE MOST COST-EFFICIENT WAY TO REACH THE MASSES THAT HAS EVER EXISTED !

* TARGETED TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE GUARANTEED !

PLEASE CONTACT OUR ADS ASSISTANT. email IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE :

braintumor2014@gmail.com

and please send a text message to my mobile phone 0030 6942686838

( 0030 is the international area code of Greece )

in order I connect into the INTERNET and to my www.gmail.com email account and to reply to your email, withing the next 24 hours.

***************************************************************

***************************************************************

*****************************************************

( English ) the StatCounter was installed on 2016-05-14, 17:30 p.m. GMT

( Greek ) ( Ελληνικά ) Ο μετρητής εγκαταστάθηκε την 14-05-2016 19:30 μ.μ. ώρα Ελλάδας

***************************************************************

***************************************************************

***************************************************************

***************************************************************

***************************************************************

***************************************************************