6 ms·

Oh, I remember reading about his find in an old (1970s or 1960s) issue of Russian pop sci journal Наука и Жизнь (Science and Life; apologies if the unicode did

by cema 17y ago

Oh, I remember reading about his find in an old (1970s or 1960s) issue of Russian pop sci journal Наука и Жизнь (Science and Life; apologies if the unicode did not work). I think one lesson here is that when the society does not value technology, technology suffers. It does not evolve on its own but needs encouragement and support. Just having smart people is not enough. I sometimes wonder what our life would have been had our ancestors started focusing on science and technology earlier, like if the scientific revolution had occurred several centuries before it did. We could have been much, much farther advanced -- or we could be living in a new stone age, I do not know.

Retric 17y ago
It's not just a question of valuing the output of technology but also caring about the details. the mechanism could be used to predict the month, day and hour of an eclipse, and even accounted for leap years. The concept of leap years is part of our calendar system but that was invented far after this device was created. Yet, that type of accuracy is simply glossed over. Perhaps the device actually accounted for leap years in their ancient calender system or perhaps the somewhere in the chain from researcher to writer someone failed to understand that leap years having nothing to do with eclipses so it's a non problem. But, the lack of details suggests someone did not really care. When most people know how to make something that technology is rarely lost but consider how many accidental deaths it would take to set something like CPU fabrication technology back 10 years. Realistically is probably not a real threat, but there is little redundancy in much of our society.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Um...actually the concept of leap years were enshrined in the Julian Calendar a mere 100 years after this device was created, and although this subsequently mutated into the Gregorian calendar (with adjustments for centenary years) the basic idea was contemporary with this device. Aristarchus, who lived through most of the 3rd century BC, identified the length of the sidereal year with reasonable accuracy and is also the first person that we know of who argued that the earth rotated around the sun, among other insights. Knowing the exact periods of the terrestrial and lunar orbits would obviously have been a necessity for constructing this wondrous machine.
  - Retric 17y ago
    Sorry about the ambiguous that, I was talking about the idea of systematic leap years not our calendar system. It was my understanding that during this time period the calendar was still being reset based the vernal equinox and a hard and fast rule had yet to be added. Otherwise there would have been no need to adopt the Julian calendar in the first place. According to the later writers Censorinus and Macrobius, the ideal intercalary cycle consisted of ordinary years of 355 days alternating with intercalary years, alternately 377 and 378 days long. On this system, the average Roman year would have had 366¼ days over four years, giving it an average drift of one day per year relative to any solstice or equinox. Macrobius describes a further refinement wherein, for 8 years out of 24, there were only three intercalary years, each of 377 days. This refinement averages the length of the year to 365¼ days over 24 years. In practice, intercalations did not occur schematically according to these ideal systems, but were determined by the pontifices. So far as can be determined from the historical evidence, they were much less regular than these ideal schemes suggest. They usually occurred every second or third year, but were sometimes omitted for much longer, and occasionally occurred in two consecutive years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      Quite so - but remember the calendar computer was of Greek origin. It wouldn't surprise me if accurate information about times and seasons were held close to the political and priestly elites rather than publicly disseminated. I think what the blog writer meant was that they device accounted for the length of the sidereal year accurately...perhaps they calculated exact dates from the nearest solstice or equinox?
dylanz 17y ago
Indeed. Imagine if everybody got along and actually worked together as a race to further technology. I bet we'd be living on a cluster of awesome planets somewhere, with extremely large lifespans.
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  competition breeds improvement.
  - rapind 17y ago
    That really depends on your definition of improvement. There's been plenty of technological advancements that haven't improved our collective lives, and they are entirely due to a competitive motive.
  - shard 17y ago
    Working together does not automatically imply a lack of competition.
dangoldin 17y ago
One can claim that a large part of scientific progress came from conflict though. A bit of friendly competition helps innovation as well.
sown 17y ago
I remember something Carl Sagan said...something along the lines (paraphrased) that the scholars at Alexandria questioned the movement of the stars but not of social conventions like slavery. The machines they made were made for the amusement of kings or for weapons but not for easing the burden of work or increasing comfort for the common man. So when the mobs came to burn the place down no one was there to stop them.
- jacoblyles 17y ago
  Seems like something very self-serving for a modern to say, to claim that the ancient civilizations crumbled because they didn't follow our values. I wonder if we have seen the last collapse of civilization? Will our descendants marvel at the wonders left in our remains and chalk our decline up to our own moral failing? Will they condemn us for not following their doctrines? "Such wonders these people made! But they were never willing to question their gods of democracy. Even as their technology grew more awe-inspiring, their governments grew more insane and profligate, until the whole structure collapsed. What mighty and foolish people!"
  - sown 17y ago
    Well...a lot of people share those sentiments. :)
  - pvg 17y ago
    I doubt anyone will be agog at concepts as mushy as 'democracy'. Few people read history and exclaim 'feudalism? who ordered that?'. We tend to be surprised at technological advances that somehow failed to be exploited despite their, in retrospect, obvious value. The first inventions of things like gunpowder, movable type and apparently mechanical gears fall under that category. By that token, future-people are might stare at us in disbelief of the less-than-optimal use we made of, say, packet-switched networks or the radio spectrum.
- Alex3917 17y ago
  According to the Wikipedia article on the library of Alexandria, Carl Sagan was basically full of shit. (I'm assuming you're talking about the last episode of Cosmos.)
10ren 17y ago
I wonder how important it is to have people who can apply a technology into something that is useful to people. Many technologies were adopted, such as fire, axe-making, house-building, pottery, perhaps because they were so obviously and immediately useful. But more sophisticated technological development often has several intermediate steps that aren't useful; so I agree that it needs to be valued in itself for progress to occur. The precision machinery of this ancient device was probably used in very few practical products; therefore the skillbase was very fragile and easily lost. Even this ancient device itself would probably only have been used by administrators, who needed to announce the Games. Of course, it also would have been horrendously expensive, in terms of man-hours for creating it, and also in terms of the years of practice required to attain that level of skill. Only kings could afford it; a niche market.

by cema 17y ago

Retric 17y ago

It's not just a question of valuing the output of technology but also caring about the details. the mechanism could be used to predict the month, day and hour of an eclipse, and even accounted for leap years. The concept of leap years is part of our calendar system but that was invented far after this device was created. Yet, that type of accuracy is simply glossed over. Perhaps the device actually accounted for leap years in their ancient calender system or perhaps the somewhere in the chain from researcher to writer someone failed to understand that leap years having nothing to do with eclipses so it's a non problem. But, the lack of details suggests someone did not really care. When most people know how to make something that technology is rarely lost but consider how many accidental deaths it would take to set something like CPU fabrication technology back 10 years. Realistically is probably not a real threat, but there is little redundancy in much of our society.

anigbrowl 17y ago
Um...actually the concept of leap years were enshrined in the Julian Calendar a mere 100 years after this device was created, and although this subsequently mutated into the Gregorian calendar (with adjustments for centenary years) the basic idea was contemporary with this device. Aristarchus, who lived through most of the 3rd century BC, identified the length of the sidereal year with reasonable accuracy and is also the first person that we know of who argued that the earth rotated around the sun, among other insights. Knowing the exact periods of the terrestrial and lunar orbits would obviously have been a necessity for constructing this wondrous machine.
- Retric 17y ago
  Sorry about the ambiguous that, I was talking about the idea of systematic leap years not our calendar system. It was my understanding that during this time period the calendar was still being reset based the vernal equinox and a hard and fast rule had yet to be added. Otherwise there would have been no need to adopt the Julian calendar in the first place. According to the later writers Censorinus and Macrobius, the ideal intercalary cycle consisted of ordinary years of 355 days alternating with intercalary years, alternately 377 and 378 days long. On this system, the average Roman year would have had 366¼ days over four years, giving it an average drift of one day per year relative to any solstice or equinox. Macrobius describes a further refinement wherein, for 8 years out of 24, there were only three intercalary years, each of 377 days. This refinement averages the length of the year to 365¼ days over 24 years. In practice, intercalations did not occur schematically according to these ideal systems, but were determined by the pontifices. So far as can be determined from the historical evidence, they were much less regular than these ideal schemes suggest. They usually occurred every second or third year, but were sometimes omitted for much longer, and occasionally occurred in two consecutive years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_calendar
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    Quite so - but remember the calendar computer was of Greek origin. It wouldn't surprise me if accurate information about times and seasons were held close to the political and priestly elites rather than publicly disseminated. I think what the blog writer meant was that they device accounted for the length of the sidereal year accurately...perhaps they calculated exact dates from the nearest solstice or equinox?

dylanz 17y ago

Indeed. Imagine if everybody got along and actually worked together as a race to further technology. I bet we'd be living on a cluster of awesome planets somewhere, with extremely large lifespans.

nazgulnarsil 17y ago
competition breeds improvement.
- rapind 17y ago
  That really depends on your definition of improvement. There's been plenty of technological advancements that haven't improved our collective lives, and they are entirely due to a competitive motive.
- shard 17y ago
  Working together does not automatically imply a lack of competition.

dangoldin 17y ago

One can claim that a large part of scientific progress came from conflict though. A bit of friendly competition helps innovation as well.

sown 17y ago

I remember something Carl Sagan said...something along the lines (paraphrased) that the scholars at Alexandria questioned the movement of the stars but not of social conventions like slavery. The machines they made were made for the amusement of kings or for weapons but not for easing the burden of work or increasing comfort for the common man. So when the mobs came to burn the place down no one was there to stop them.

jacoblyles 17y ago
Seems like something very self-serving for a modern to say, to claim that the ancient civilizations crumbled because they didn't follow our values. I wonder if we have seen the last collapse of civilization? Will our descendants marvel at the wonders left in our remains and chalk our decline up to our own moral failing? Will they condemn us for not following their doctrines? "Such wonders these people made! But they were never willing to question their gods of democracy. Even as their technology grew more awe-inspiring, their governments grew more insane and profligate, until the whole structure collapsed. What mighty and foolish people!"
- sown 17y ago
  Well...a lot of people share those sentiments. :)
- pvg 17y ago
  I doubt anyone will be agog at concepts as mushy as 'democracy'. Few people read history and exclaim 'feudalism? who ordered that?'. We tend to be surprised at technological advances that somehow failed to be exploited despite their, in retrospect, obvious value. The first inventions of things like gunpowder, movable type and apparently mechanical gears fall under that category. By that token, future-people are might stare at us in disbelief of the less-than-optimal use we made of, say, packet-switched networks or the radio spectrum.
Alex3917 17y ago
According to the Wikipedia article on the library of Alexandria, Carl Sagan was basically full of shit. (I'm assuming you're talking about the last episode of Cosmos.)

10ren 17y ago

I wonder how important it is to have people who can apply a technology into something that is useful to people. Many technologies were adopted, such as fire, axe-making, house-building, pottery, perhaps because they were so obviously and immediately useful. But more sophisticated technological development often has several intermediate steps that aren't useful; so I agree that it needs to be valued in itself for progress to occur. The precision machinery of this ancient device was probably used in very few practical products; therefore the skillbase was very fragile and easily lost. Even this ancient device itself would probably only have been used by administrators, who needed to announce the Games. Of course, it also would have been horrendously expensive, in terms of man-hours for creating it, and also in terms of the years of practice required to attain that level of skill. Only kings could afford it; a niche market.