Wired.com: Ancient Greek Computer Had Surprising Sun Tracker

The world’s oldest astronomical calculator is famous for having intricate gear systems centuries ahead of their time. But new work shows the Antikythera mechanism used pure geometry, as well as flashy gears to track celestial bodies’ motion through the heavens.

The device, a 2,000-year-old assemblage of gears and wheels that matched 19th century clocks in precision and complexity, was salvaged from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901.

Called the Antikythera mechanism, the machine gracefully kept track of the day of the year, the positions of the sun and the moon, and perhaps the other planets. It also predicted eclipses and kept track of upcoming Olympic games.

Most of the mechanism’s calculations were driven by a series of 37 interlocking dials, which may have been manipulated by a hand crank. The front of the mechanism had a clock-like face that denoted the calendar date in two concentric circles, one showing the signs of the Greek zodiac, and one carrying the Egyptian months of the year.

Three hands denoting the date and the position of the sun and the moon moved through the zodiac and the months as the gears turned.

“It’s a pretty elaborate piece of machinery,” said science historian James Evans of the University of Puget Sound in a presentation at the University of Washington in Seattle on March 31. “Nobody would ever have guessed that there could be something this complex in the second century [BC].”….Read More

Short URL: http://cubanology.com/home/?p=5234

Posted by Jose Reyes on Apr 3 2011. Filed under Current News, Post To Slider, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry