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A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism
- jdefelice 6y agoClickspring has been recreating the Antikythera[1] and findings[2] went into a research paper.[3] [1] Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML4tw_UzqZE&list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4_jDU2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML4tw_UzqZE&list=PLZioPDnFPN... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkKgdq57uOo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkKgdq57uOo [3] https://bhi.co.uk/antikytheramechanism/ https://bhi.co.uk/antikytheramechanism/
- rfrey 6y agoFor added incentive for those who make the poor call to not check out the videos, he doesn't just recreate the mechanism... He invents or re-invents the tools and techniques required to make it, using only materials and technology known to be available at the time.
- ddingus 6y agoAnd that is super cool. I think we'd very significantly underestimate what our earlier brothers and sisters could actually do. And I also believe, since communication was spotty, and took a long time, that there were pockets of real Mastery in the world. But everyone didn't benefit, just because of the communication and knowledge-sharing difficulties from that time. I think Travelers had an amazing experience. They could go to some parts of the world and literally see the future, and other parts of the world and perhaps feel very connected to the very basics. Meta: I sure wish this Google Voice thing would not randomly capitalized words. Sorry for the typos I just dictated this and hit send
- posterboy 6y agoyou can go to, say, India today and see the past. Same difference. Since the Median empire at least, the post was also fairly standard. Vice versa, I am affraid I severely underestimate what pockets of real mastery exist in the world, hidden behind NDAs, paywalls and below the threshold in libraries. I'm normally pretty much satisfied with holding a telecommunication device in my hand. This includes, hypothetically, the modern knowledge of ancient knowledge. So I don't disagree with you.
- mikepurvis 6y agoHaving the ability to send letters is one thing, but that's not the same as having the kind of widespread societal/academic support system which circulates knowledge, elevates budding experts, and brings together groups interested in a common area of study.
- posterboy 6y agoPart of it may be that superior knowledge was highly secretive and well guarded. That's why I'm saying it's the same as today. There is no good reason a peasant would be unable to read, except that nobody taught them, which should not take too much time for alphabetics, or that it was written in a foreign, holy language. Heck, Runes were considered to have magical power and ritual incantations were highly formularized--as they are today: a) e.g. in fashion brands, b) e.g. in law code to the extent that it requires professional translators Or closer to the topic, take maths, which has a highly formularized, international, often ambiguous and domain specific writing system. Indeed, it's also a good example of a science where instruction is crucial, and most information is left out in writing because the reader is expected to have it all in working memory. Even better analogy, computing machines: Not only do write with them, but in a sense we encode information in the, well, object, just like a sine and cosine wave diagram (or animation) encodes the motion of a radius in the circle. Only the keenest reverse engineers are able to read out the fundamental principles of its working. But, for analogy, CISC was found unwieldy so the trend is going back to RISC and doing hyperscalarity via networking, to solve heat problems. Anyhow,domain knowledge implies today as it did then where to get stuff, not just how to use it. Specifically for the Iron age this means knowledge of iron mines, geography and geology. Maths and other structural sciences are only peripheral. Given that early Iron was meteoric, one can kind of see how a connection to the skies and gods could be drawn. And we have to wonder about fate, too. Some resources simply deplete. It's not that the knowledge is lost, but its application. Calenders have been further developed, certainly. Currently we predict the future on the end of global climate. Yeah that's sad, but it puts the little bit of heat that I put out as background noise into perspective.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
- willhslade 6y agoYou can do this today: hang out with a reindeer herder in Siberia and then pop over to Shanghai. Nothing's changed.
- sjtindell 6y agoI agree. I also have had a strange feeling my last few travels though. There is a pervasive sameness. Even in more traditional parts of India, Mexico. Obviously in places like the US, Western Europe, Canada. Once I step out of the temple, or get off the horse in the remote village, there’s this familiarity. I think an example is what I now think of as “the uniform”: sneakers, jeans, a t shirt with a brand on it. 9 to 5 jobs and democratic governments. Many similar problems, relationships. Obviously there are huge differences in so many fundamental ways, even the ones I mention. But it’s the thread of truth you find in controversial books like The End of History. Globalization is real. The conquest of capitalism and the dream of liberal democracy is far reaching.
- ddingus 6y agoYes I see this too. For The Travelers back in those times the world could look very different. And not that it doesn't look different now, but you're right there's a lot more of the same things were more homogenized and we know more about other places in the world than they ever could have back then
- ddingus 6y agoI agree, but the experience is a little bit less fantastic just because we know more. We know that the Futures in some places and we can still see the past. That was not true for Traveller way back then
- tzs 6y ago> I think we'd very significantly underestimate what our earlier brothers and sisters could actually do. I think what happens is that we forget that you can make a heck of a lot of even complicated and precise things with simple technology if you have a lot of time, have a lot of money to pay for labor, and don't need to produce more than a handful of the thing. Need 100000 pairs of matched gears with a very precise fit, and you need them next month and cheaply? You need modern techniques. Need one pair, and you've got years to produce it, and plenty of money? All you need is someone with a fine file to hand file the teeth, frequently checking the fit and tweaking it.
- dylan604 6y agoMy day's schedule just got put on pause.
- wdb 6y agoGreat videos. It's so fascinating that they were able to make such a device back in that time. Still wondering how they have done without the machines we have these days, though. Thanks for posting it
- m-app 6y agoRelated video presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQnE0BLEi8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQnE0BLEi8k
- SeeManDo 6y agoWhere are the ancient Nazi conspiracies and how this machine is related to JFK and the Illuminati pawn stars?
- gatlin 6y agoEh, even we think it's a reach to connect antikythera to George H W Bush like that.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- noisy_boy 6y agoWonder if there are common origins of Antikhytera and Sanskrit word for cosmos, Antariksha.
- rexreed 6y agoThere is no connection. Antikyhtera is the name of the Greek island near where the device was found. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera
- maxerickson 6y agoThe mechanism is named after an island near to where it was found. It was found in a wrecked roman ship, the island name is contemporary Greek. So it would be a coincidence, likely without much meaning.
- exDM69 6y agoAntikythera is the name of the location where the archeological discovery of the mechanism was made. Its origins are unknown. Thus the mechanism has no relation to the sanskrit word.
- johnnujler 6y agoNot sure if it would be wise to dismiss the possibility so easily. We clearly do not know all the causal elements involved, plus I wouldn't be surprised if the name of the island itself had something to do with "antariksha".
- exDM69 6y agoIf there is a connection, it is coincidental and unrelated to the mechanism which was made elsewhere, and sank in a storm en route to somewhere else. Antikythera is a small barren island in the mediterranean.
- chatzi 6y agoAntikithira is a composite word: Anti (a prefix meaning opposite) + Kithira (a nearby island). So maybe it is the other way round, "antariksha" is named after the island ?
- JKCalhoun 6y agoThe design, so slim, so dense, so well engineered. There has to have been ones that came before. Too clever to not be an iteration. I wonder if we'll ever discover another.
- mseepgood 6y ago> The design, so slim, so dense, so well engineered. It's the Apple M1 of its time.
- ncmncm 6y agoMeaning, it's one of billions only just slightly less sophisticated?
- alanbernstein 6y agoThere are some interesting parallels between the technological and cultural history of mechanical watches and smartphones... call it an iphone of its time, or apple watch of its time, and you're on to somthing.
- jandrese 6y agoThe flipside of being so small and dense is that was fragile, which is a problem when you're trying to preserve something for a millennia. It was also undoubtedly expensive, meaning few were produced in the first place and they would be a prime target for thieves and artifact hunters. The one in the article could easily be the last one remaining.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoI always wonder what future archaeologists in will read into artifacts from our time when they find them in 2000 years...
- DamnYuppie 6y agoWe really like trash made of plastic.
- bluGill 6y agoI'm not so sure. A lot of trash plastic degrades over long periods of time. They might find the plumbing (which is a type of plastic that lasts longer), but that isn't trash in general.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoHow long will PVC pipes last? 1000 years is a long time.
- bluGill 6y agoI don't know. A lot depends on how they are. UV is the main degrader of plastics in general (but I'm not sure about PVC in particular), but in walls or the ground that isn't a problem. PVC is often used for vent pipes where it is allowed through the roof with no treatment - but failures in this application are not a disaster (no pressure). HDEP (black water pipe - not to be confused with ABS which is sometimes used for drains) pipe has a history of 50 years in the ground with no sign of failure. PEX is expected to last 100 years in a building, but in one month of sun exposure is enough to make it no longer able to hold water pressure. I've named 3 types of plastic, you can't apply a blanket statement about any of them that applies to the rest.
- progre 6y agoI read someware that in 2000 years the books we managed to save from the middle ages and up to about 1850 will still be around but anything printed after that will be gone because the paper of the modern age is to fragile to last.
- belval 6y agoWhat happened to these advanced civilization of the antiquity? We have drawings of highly advanced siege engines yet it seem that after the fall of Rome we all went back to fighting with sticks for a few centuries. Why is that?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- LegitShady 6y agoLiterally the dark ages...go read up on it.
- McRask 6y agoDefine irony
- LegitShady 6y agomeh the dark ages are well studied and any minor effort to find some information on it will get someone more and more accurate information on it than asking on HN. It's the kind of question that has a short but useless answer that fits on hackernews 'fall of rome bad for progress' but the answer you should get is to go put in some basic effort and look it up - its easy to find information on using the terms 'dark ages'.
- belval 6y agoYou assessment is fair, but there is a lot of data out there that you simply won't find by using Google search. One exemple is the "A collection of unmitigated pedantry" blog which I found after someone used it in a comment when replying to me. If you google "Iron processing in the middle ages" you won't find Bret Devereaux' excellent series[1], yet it is a much better read than the Wikipedia page. [1] https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-make-it-part-i-mining/ https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-...
- 6y ago
- cproctor 6y agoIs that King's Landing?
- JasonFruit 6y agoSometimes I think the Antikythera Mechanism is more of an ancient Greek Rorschach blot: what people are certain it was supposed to do may reveal more about what is important to them than it does about the mechanism and its maker's intent.
- sho_hn 6y agoIf you want to go deeper, I can recommend Jo Marchant's book on the device as a lovely summary of what it does, the research history and how it all relates to the rest of world history.
- redwall_hp 6y agoThis cites Price's "Gears from the Greeks" (1974), one of the major papers on the Antikythera Mechanism. I read through it once for a university assignment. It's fascinating and well worth checking out if you're interested in the device.
- throwaway81523 6y agoSadly or maybe only interestingly, the Clickspring folks' recent article[1] arguing that the mechanism used a lunar calendar doesn't seem to be cited in this new article. [1] https://bhi.co.uk/antikytheramechanism/ https://bhi.co.uk/antikytheramechanism/
- bluGill 6y agoGiven how recent his publication is, it is quite likely that the authors of this were already in the final edit stages when they became aware of it, and so it didn't affect anything in their paper and so wasn't cited.
- motohagiography 6y agoForgive the naive question, but does this mean these ancient Greeks knew the world was round thousands of years ago?
- tsoukase 6y agoEratosthenes even measured earth's circumference with astonishing accuracy. They knew more than we think they knew...
- ljf 6y agoYes; https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/ancient-greeks-proved-earth-round-eratosthenes-alexandria-syene-summer-solstice-a8131376.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/ancient-gre...
- dan-robertson 6y agoThe Greeks deduced that lunar eclipses were caused by the earth’s shadow and, from the consistent roundness of the shadow, that it was a globe.
- nograpes 6y agoCan anyone help me understand why gears with prime numbers of teeth would not be mechanizable? For Venus the original designer faced a dilemma: the known period relation (5, 8) was very inaccurate, whereas the accurate (720, 1151) was not mechanizable because 1151 is a prime number, requiring a gear with 1151 teeth. I thought that gears with prime numbers of teeth would be advantageous because it would spread the wear evenly across the gear that it contacted.
- blt 6y ago1151 is too many teeth for a gear. The teeth would not be deep enough to transmit power effectively. You can't make this exact ratio using gears with fewer teeth because 1151 is prime (more generally, whenever the numerator and denominator are coprime).
- biggieshellz 6y agoYou can't split them up into several smaller gear pairs, so you actually need two gears with 720 and 1151 teeth. A gear with 1151 teeth is impractical to make, both in terms of size and in terms of the manufacturing capability at the time.
- wolfd 6y agoIt's tough to make gears with that many teeth, especially if you want them to mesh with smaller gears. Also, meshing against a 1-tooth gear is problematic, so you would need to probably increase that to >4 teeth to have it work. Then your bigger gear needs to have >4x the teeth to get the desired ratio.
- vgel 6y agoIn addition to the other comments, gears with a prime number of teeth were undesirable because they couldn't be laid out by iterative division of a circle. A gear with 64 teeth can be easily laid out by dividing the circle into fourths, dividing those fourths into fourths, and again to get 64 even divisions. For a gear with a prime number of teeth, the only option is to guess-and-check walk a pair of calipers around the circle, adjusting them iteratively until you make the exact number of steps and wind up at the exact same place. Without vision magnification, this was extremely difficult to do accurately. Clickspring (see top comment) did some experiments with a large dividing plate that makes the process somewhat easier, but it would still be far more difficult than making a non-prime number of teeth.