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From: boingboing <rssfeeds@spamassassin.taint.org>
Subject: 2000+ year old Greek computer reinterpreted
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2002 08:00:32 -0000
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URL: http://boingboing.net/#85507259
Date: Not supplied

The Antikythera mechanism, recovered off a sunken ship in Greece in 1900, is 
thought to be a clockwork device to calculate the orbits of the celestial 
bodies. New analysis of the remaining fragments shows that it was wicked-cool: 

    The Greeks believed in an earth-centric universe and accounted for 
    celestial bodies' motions using elaborate models based on epicycles, in 
    which each body describes a circle (the epicycle) around a point that 
    itself moves in a circle around the earth. Mr Wright found evidence that 
    the Antikythera mechanism would have been able to reproduce the motions of 
    the sun and moon accurately, using an epicyclic model devised by 
    Hipparchus, and of the planets Mercury and Venus, using an epicyclic model 
    derived by Apollonius of Perga. (These models, which predate the mechanism, 
    were subsequently incorporated into the work of Claudius Ptolemy in the 
    second century AD.) 

    A device that just modelled the motions of the sun, moon, Mercury and Venus 
    does not make much sense. But if an upper layer of mechanism had been 
    built, and lost, these extra gears could have modelled the motions of the 
    three other planets known at the time—Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In other 
    words, the device may have been able to predict the positions of the known 
    celestial bodies for any given date with a respectable degree of accuracy, 
    using bronze pointers on a circular dial with the constellations of the 
    zodiac running round its edge.  

Link[1] Discuss[2] (_Thanks, Mark!_)

[1] http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1337165
[2] http://www.quicktopic.com/boing/H/UKW9AAQCsFibH


