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The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets
- cf100clunk 5y agoThe famous Antikythera mechanism: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29778874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29778874 https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Antikythera https://hn.algolia.com/?q=Antikythera
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoI’m wondering if anyone has created a software model of the mechanism. Is anyone aware of such a project? It sounds right up the alley of many HN readers.
- BizarroLand 5y agoI feel like I saw one on the F-Droid app repository
- lostlogin 5y agoBackwards engineering the front and back and how it all came together and passed though has me picturing this as a possibly the earliest front end/back end development situation. It even included documentation. A software version would be neat to see.
- sdrabing 5y agoI was thinking the same thing! I 3D model would be really neat to watch and pick apart.
- cormullion 5y agoI have one on mu iPad. There are 2 in the App Store, I think.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoThis what you have? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/antikythera-mechanism/id989574753 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/antikythera-mechanism/id989574... The other one seems to be less favorably rated.
- zvr 5y agoMore than a decade ago, Diomidis Spinellis created an implementation running on the OLPC, written in Squeak: https://www.spinellis.gr/sw/ameso/ https://www.spinellis.gr/sw/ameso/
- amznbyebyebye 5y agoThe 19 year Metonic cycle is interesting. I think it is also the orbital period of the moons nodes (aka dragon head/tail or north node/south node or rahu/Ketu in Indian astronomy). I wonder if there is a connection.
- Someone 5y agoThe Metonic cycle likely is the connection. No matter where you are on earth, if you start tracking the years (from the repetition of the seasons) and months (from the lunar phases), you’ll noticed the location of the moon (and, hence, eclipses) repeats itself after 19 years (it’s “almost repeats”, but discovering that takes either over a lifetime of observations or fairly precise measurements and trust in them)
- amznbyebyebye 5y agoWow thanks, this is so fascinating
- adolph 5y agoThen you’d might find the axial cycle interesting, and this sculpture depicting it. The plaza’s terrazzo floor is actually a celestial map that marks the time of the dam’s creation based on the 25,772-year axial precession of the earth. https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/the-26-000-year-astronomical-monument-hidden-in-plain-sight-9ec13c9d29b5 https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/the-26-000-year-a...
- amznbyebyebye 5y agoFascinating, I think Yukteswar Giri (teacher of Yogananda) tried to make a case that the Yuga cycles were tied to the axial precession. Somehow these cosmic manifestation have a parallel on what happens on earth, similar to how the earths rotation around the sun creates some regular periodic change (aka the 4 seasons)
- fforflo 5y agoI live a 10' min walking distance from the museum the mechanism is displayed. Reading this makes me a bit ashamed for not spending hours just looking at it.
- pauldavis 5y agoI went to that museum last summer and I spent 90% of my visit at exhibits related to it. It's super cool, and well-presented, IMO.
- chrisbrandow 5y agoThis detailed description and his musings make me further convinced that if high quality clear glass technology had been created at this time, human history and discovery could have been profoundly different. Eyeglasses, telescopes, and microscopes would have allowed the Greeks to take discovery to the next level. Surely that’s an oversimplification, but I always wonder.
- joshspankit 5y agoThere are some rather compelling theories positing that ancient Egyptians discovered how they could make a type of glass that they moulded in to a lens at least 5M in diameter. At that size, the focused light from the sun gets hot enough to melt granite (among other things). I thin you’re right that they likely would not have had the clarity to make those smaller optics useful, but it feels interesting enough to add here.
- cryptonector 5y agoGot any links for this? I'd like to know more.
- cdot2 5y agoI don't think people have put enough stock in the possibility that the Antikythera device was primarily used for astrology. This would likely have been the primary reason an ancient person would want to know the positions of the stars and planets on a specific date and time.
- kromem 5y agoAt the time the two fields weren't seen as separate things as they are now. Astrology and astronomy were pursued by the same figures, much as Newton pursued alchemy as well as physics.
- naikrovek 5y agoI am ashamed that we think so little of ancient cultures. they weren't stupid. they were as smart as we are, perhaps smarter. they were far fewer in number than we are today, and the library of technology they could draw from to solve a problem was much smaller for them, is all. nothing about the Antikythera mechanism is complex; the math is simple and the construction is that of a machine made many times and made slightly smaller each iteration, as sections are moved to fit into a more compact arrangement. even coming up with the ratios to describe the motion of the planets would be easily done by one or more people who were dedicated observers who wrote their observations down. nothing here is complex, yet we still consider new discoveries about the device which reveal unpredicted complexity to be "too advanced" to be made at the time it appears to be made... I don't know why scientists do this. why can't we just admit that we don't know what ancient civilizations were capable of, rather than assuming they were incapable of simple tasks?
- sidlls 5y agoI'm not sure in general "scientists" do what you suggest. Not all scientists are required to take them, but there are courses in the history of science. I took two semesters and it was quite enlightening. The texts we used were replete with admonishments against the sort of chauvinism you suggest. At the same time, if we discover some feat of engineering or scrap of insight that was heretofore thought unknown in the period it was created in, it's worth noting: it permits us to revise what we know about the investigators of the time and what they actually knew to begin with.
- mannerheim 5y agoThe ancient Greeks did the same thing. They believed that the walls of Mycenae were built by cyclops because they couldn't imagine how their forefathers built them - and so they dubbed it cyclopean masonry. Ancient aliens for ancient Greeks.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoScientists build on what they know, not what they speculate. "We" don't look down on ancient peoples, it's just that history didn't show any devices this complicated so this "unique" device has captured everyone's attention. No one is looking down on the Greeks. Ancients humans were as smart as we are, they just didn't have as much data to draw from to create new things or come up with new theories.
- chadlavi 5y agoIt's really surprising we've never seen another like it in the archaeological record. This is can't be the first thing of this nature that this craftsman ever made.
- galaxyLogic 5y agoThe article proposes the explanation that because bronze was expensive if some gear broke the bronze was melted and reused maybe for something similar IF you had the skills to make a new one, but as likely used for something else. Also it seems like a major undertaking creating such a machine. Perhaps they had just a few of them like we have just a few big particle accelerators. The article does not get into how much effort and wealth it would have required to build such a machine assuming you had the people who could a) create the gears with high enough precision and b) assemble it. If you ever took a mechanical alarm clock apart and tried to re-assemble it you know what I mean.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoIt does make me curious. I mean, while I'm sure a machine like this would be rare even then, there have HAD to be more of them, or similar, simpler machines with cogs and dials, because these things usually don't exist in a vacuum. We just don't know how much has been lost due to decay or re-melting stuff. I mean just look around and see how much stuff from, say, 500 years ago is still around. Tools and household items, I mean. It's limited to a few museum pieces. And if you look at some big upheavals / iconoclasms (always wanted to use that word) from recent years in for example the middle east, or the cultural revolution in China, a lot of these historical collections end up destroyed or lost for one reason or another. I mean some people were doing book burnings in the US not long ago.
- arrakis2021 5y agoAnytime I read about the Antikythera machine I get major “Myst” vibes. If you played it on PC you might know what I mean
- krastanov 5y agoThis very talented machinist (Clickspring's Chris) is recreating the device using tools from that age on their YouTube channel https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4_jDU2 https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to... It is an amazing playlist.
- wesleyoneal 5y agoTools from that age? I’m on video 2, and it looks like he’s using a bunch of modern tools that wouldn’t have been available 2000+ years ago?
- JshWright 5y agoIt's not exactly "making the whole thing with period tools" but rather "exploring how each part could have been made using available technology (but still doing the bulk of the work with modern tooling)".
- krazerlasers 5y agoKeep watching -- he gets more into the period appropriate tools later in the series including home made drills, files, layout ink, soldering tools, etc
- Luc 5y agoThe ancient tool series is another list of his: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsGnUXuZScwn6Ackf6LGILCa https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsGnUXuZScwn...
- posterboy 5y agoShould shut off the camera first of all. I'm too pessimistic, sorry.
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoYou're not sorry because you still hit Reply even though your comment wasn't constructive at all.
- reactspa 5y ago> in his model, the 223-tooth gear turned much too fast for it to make sense. But in my model, the 223-tooth gear rotates very slowly Science! (Clarification: it all sounds very narrative-fallacy to me. Hey, but feel free to downvote the opinion of a contrarian!)
- JshWright 5y agoI think the downvotes are because you are making a very low effort criticism (even with your clarification). If you expand a bit on why it sounds "narrative-fallacy" to you, you might get more traction.
- ecpottinger 5y agoI am sure he mention the engaging a 38 tooth gear that meant a 19 year cycle was done at half the speed first thought was needed.
- marstall 5y agothis was an amazing read! I know some are upset at certain recent SciAm op-eds. But every issue has 2-5 gorgeous, beefy articles like this one that make me a happy paying subscriber. Absolutely stunning visualization of the inner workings of this marvelous device.
- neogodless 5y agohttps://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Antikythera&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... This mechanism comes up a lot. Is there a TL;DR about what's new in this particular submission?
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- skunkworker 5y agoEvery time I think about the Antikythera mechanism the quote by Arthur C. Clarke comes to mind "If the insight of the Greeks had matched their ingenuity…we would not merely be puttering around on the Moon, we would have reached the nearer stars." It's a little sensational but also makes me think of what could've been, if certain paths had been realized in past times, and also makes me put the technical knowledge of past civilizations in much higher regard.
- dougmwne 5y agoThis realization hit me after spending a few weeks in Italy seeing the remains of the Roman Empire. I had a building sense that they were awfully close to the industrial revolution, that there was no particular reason it couldn’t have happened thousands of years ago in the face of a highly organized, long lived, innovative empire with enormous resources. I think it’s an accident of history that it happened in England instead.
- topper-123 5y agoA fun alternative time line to think about would be if the romans had progressed, had depleted all coal and oil resources, leaving us today in a postapocalyptic wasteland, having the knowledge how to build an advanced society, but lacking the ressources…
- areoform 5y agoThe Antikythera mechanism gives me nightmares. Just as the suggestion that a lack of transmissions from intelligent life means the existence of a great filter. The Antikythera mechanism is a strong indicator of technological regression in human beings. Perhaps more terrifying is the fact that it is not the first time we've regressed or collapsed. The mysterious Late Bronze Age Collapse is another example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse Or, the Classic Maya civilization collapse, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Maya_collapse It is inconceivable for us to imagine a rapid regression today. Our civilization seems invincible, the knowledge seems to be too widespread. But most of our knowledge is brittle. If you were to send a time capsule forward with the recipes to remake our modern world, including eUV technology. How would you do it? (using extant literature) Research papers require years of study and background knowledge to fully understand and they fully fail to capture the science involved. Patents are even more inscrutable. We couldn't send our CAD drawings and specifications forward either, because they require specialized knowledge as well. After all, how would they build an iPhone if they don't know how to make screws or glue? Or, the multi-layer PCBs etc. Another renaissance to recreate our civilization from our published work would be nearly impossible. Or, take centuries to accomplish. It may be fruitful to imagine ways to fit civilization into a box that can last tens of thousands of years, so that future generations can find it —— post apocalyptic tragedy —— and rapidly recreate our world.
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- momojo 5y agoReminds me of Asimov's Foundation trilogy. "Seldon explains that his science of psychohistory foresees many alternatives, all of which result in the Galactic Empire eventually falling. If humanity follows its current path, the Empire will fall and 30,000 years of turmoil will overcome humanity before a second Empire arises. However, an alternative path allows for the intervening years to be only one thousand" Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series#Foundation_(1951) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_series#Foundation_(...
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- codesnik 5y agoWritings on the mechanism are surprisingly crude for the artisanship of the mechanism itself.
- fouc 5y agoProbably just different material (not bronze)
- jimbokun 5y agoIs it just me, or is the Antikythera calling out for a Dr. Who episode tying it to aliens or some other fantastic explanation?
- jl6 5y agoI think there was an attempt in FlashForward, but the series got cancelled.
- aspenmayer 5y agoThat show is so underrated. It reminds me of the vibe of Charlie from Always Sunny in front of the bulletin board going on about Pepe Sylvia, but as a thought-provoking sci-fi show.
- doctor_eval 5y agoNo wireless. Only five planets. Lame.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoGreat read, love how it has a display. Something for the kings of the era to be amazed by.
- utopcell 5y agoI remember reading that Clickspring's Chris has committed to giving away the Antikythera device to a random patreon supporter of his once it is completed.
- NickNameNick 5y agoHe used to build two of everything. Once to figure out how to make it, and again to film it. So he may end up with two of each project, one to keep, another to give away.
- Cody_C 5y agoEvery time something like this is found, I think it highlights how little credit we give some ancient people. You have to imagine there were machines they created that were more complex than this that we haven't discovered. There are a lot of people in our current times that couldn't build this even with an entire machine shop at their disposal.