Source: thenewstack.io
Researchers Re-Create the Antikythera Mechanism, the World’s Oldest Compute
Discovered in the remains of a 2,000-year-old shipwreck, the Antikythera Mechanism been described as “the most sophisticated mechanism known from the ancient world.
In a triumph of modern-day technology, researchers at University College London believe they’ve deduced and deciphered how the original machine performed its computations — and determined all of its corresponding mechanical parts.
What’s left of the inscription on the front cover lists the years in the orbits of planets relative to the sun.
At one point the video describes this inscription as a “user manual,” suggesting it provided the numbers that could be used for pulling up various alignments of the planets — and allowing ancient Greeks to calculate the days between celestial events.
Similarly, the patterns for Mars and Jupiter share a factor of seven with Saturn, allowing a 56-toothed gear to handle three planets, and “leading to very economical designs…
In a triumph of modern-day technology, researchers at University College London believe they’ve deduced and deciphered how the original machine performed its computations — and determined all of its corresponding mechanical parts.
What’s left of the inscription on the front cover lists the years in the orbits of planets relative to the sun.
At one point the video describes this inscription as a “user manual,” suggesting it provided the numbers that could be used for pulling up various alignments of the planets — and allowing ancient Greeks to calculate the days between celestial events.
Similarly, the patterns for Mars and Jupiter share a factor of seven with Saturn, allowing a 56-toothed gear to handle three planets, and “leading to very economical designs…
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