The Antikythera Mechanism

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zavvy

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<b>The Antikythera Mechanism </b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />WHEN a Greek sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck of a cargo ship off the tiny island of Antikythera in 1900, it was the statues lying on the seabed that made the greatest impression on him. He returned to the surface, removed his helmet, and gabbled that he had found a heap of dead, naked women. The ship's cargo of luxury goods also included jewellery, pottery, fine furniture, wine and bronzes dating back to the first century BC. But the most important finds proved to be a few green, corroded lumps—the last remnants of an elaborate mechanical device.<br /><br />The Antikythera mechanism, as it is now known, was originally housed in a wooden box about the size of a shoebox, with dials on the outside and a complex assembly of bronze gear wheels within. X-ray photographs of the fragments, in which around 30 separate gears can be distinguished, led the late Derek Price, a science historian at Yale University, to conclude that the device was an astronomical computer capable of predicting the positions of the sun and moon in the zodiac on any given date. A new analysis, though, suggests that the device was cleverer than Price thought, and reinforces the evidence for his theory of an ancient Greek tradition of complex mechanical technology.<br /><br />Michael Wright, the curator of mechanical engineering at the Science Museum in London, has based his new analysis on detailed X-rays of the mechanism using a technique called linear tomography. This involves moving an X-ray source, the film and the object being investigated relative to one another, so that only features in a particular plane come into focus. Analysis of the resulting images, carried out in conjunction with Allan Bromley, a computer scientist at Sydney University, found the exact position of each gear, and suggested that Price was wrong in several resp
 
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silylene old

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The Antikythera Mechanism is certainly interesting.<br /><br />While on vacation this summer in Venice, I came across a fascinating machine built about 1250 A.D. to weave the finest tapestries, now stored in large room in the Doge's Palace. This machine was incredibly intricate, with hundreds of gears, cogs, levers <i> and a punch-card reading mechanism </i>. A 10-meter strip of wooden punch cards, woven together, was auto-fed into the machine and the holes in the cards were read with wooden dowel "fingers". The punch-card program drove the mechanism in the machine which selected the threads and the styles of the weaves as the tapestry fabric was fed through.<br /><br />This machine was amazing, built of finely carved wood and carefully handmade iron parts. I think it is the first programmable device ever built.<br /><br />My wife thought I was nuts to be more excited discovering this fascinating machine in a dark room in the palace than I was about any of the art and architecture.<br /><br />I could not find a reference about this machine on the net. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>
 
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thechemist

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<font color="yellow"> <i> "He returned to the surface, removed his helmet, and gabbled that he had found a heap of dead, naked women. "</i></font>/i><br /><br />Yep, he was Greek alright ... <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>I feel better than James Brown.</em> </div>
 
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CalliArcale

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Oh wow, silylene! As a computer geek, I find that utterly fascinating. Your wife doesn't know what she's missing with this kind of thing. BTW, if you liked that and you ever find yourself in Montana, get to the Computer Museum in Bozeman. It's fantastic and has a wealth of historical computing devices. I think they do have some Jacquard loom pieces, which are similar to what you're describing.<br /><br />The Jacquard Loom was the mass-market realization of the device you saw in Venice. It was invented in 1801, however, so it really took a long time for the concept to revolutionize the textile industry. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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CalliArcale

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Oh cool! I've seen that clock too! I've got a picture of it at home from my one and only trip to Somerset, during a glorious month that I spent in England during my college years. It is indeed impressive. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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CalliArcale

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The Jacquard loom did cause riots, but was not suppressed -- at least not succesfully. By then, the forces of economics had gone too far. Thousands of Jacquard looms were in use within years of its invention. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>
 
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silylene old

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stevehw33: you may be right. The signage in the museum was Italian, so I couldn't read it. I assumed the card-programmable loom in that room was the same age as the tapestries on the walls (1200-1400 AD). But I looked up a picture of a Jacquard loom on everyone's suggestion, and it does look exactly like what I saw. A google search did find that Venice tapestry makers acquired their first Jacquard loom in 1799, which would have been one of the earliest of these looms made.<br /><br />A Jacquard loom is an amazing piece of engineering and creativity. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><em><font color="#0000ff">- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -</font></em> </div><div class="Discussion_UserSignature" align="center"><font color="#0000ff"><em>I really, really, really miss the "first unread post" function.</em></font> </div> </div>
 
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