6 ms·

The Computer in the Aegean

39 points by Petiver 4y ago

smitty1e 4y ago
One important tangent from this and the other ancient wonders is the peril of proprietary information. How much earlier might humanity have achieved calculus, flight, transistors, &c if important knowledge wasn't confined to priesthoods and artisans? Don't let the know-how pass with you, say I.
- jl6 4y ago
  I don’t think the ancients were altogether different from us when it comes to protecting trade secrets. Innovations of military or economic value were kept secret to preserve an advantage, and they still are today. I also don’t think there’s a slam dunk answer to whether innovation is spurred more by the profit motive inherent in the proprietary approach, or by the widespread enablement of the high-openness approach.
  - KineticLensman 4y ago
    Yes. Secrecy associated with silk manufacture is a great example [0]. [0].
    - account-5 4y ago
      Unsure if you missed pasting the link, or you're being ironic...
      - turtleyacht 4y ago
        This is amazing: denote empty citations as an alernate to the terminating sarcasm tag (/s). It's probably even more explicit, and we are forced to charity by the absence of reference. Imagine what wonders the wandering of undeclared references shall do to a mind numbly scrolling through comments; forced to pause, and brief attention focused on the fitting of a slotted thought.
  - smitty1e 4y ago
    The historical record seems to show a great deal of knowledge being obtained, then lost. Knowledge transfer ain't bean-bag.
- achrono 4y ago
  Calculus, flight, transistors etc. were not delayed because of knowledge being confined, but because of knowledge being persecuted.
  - smitty1e 4y ago
    (a) Both can be among the causes for slow knowledge growth (b) The past tense is by no means in order where persecution is concerned.
    - achrono 4y ago
      Sure, agreed with (a) in general that they both can be causes of decline, but in the specific case of this post, it is amply clear that the wide range of intellectual areas that ancient Greece excelled in (with barely a parallel) was radically narrowed and almost destroyed due to persecution of this knowledge rather than it being restricted to the elite. I don't understand what you're trying to say with (b).
      - smitty1e 4y ago
        (a) Euclid and Pythagoras have surviving writings, but the physical applications were lost. (b) Look at the scientists trying to view Covid accurately.
BirAdam 4y ago
So, this is a special purpose measurement tool with some automation, and it is not a computer. The way the word computer is understood today is an automatic, general purpose, stored program, electronic computer. The Antikythera mechanism, OTOH, is a complex, slightly automated, astrolabe. There is a very fundamental conceptual leap that the the astrolabe fails to make which is that all calculation can be done by a machine made of rather simple parts: switches. All of that said, I think the main reason that the Antikythera mechanism continues to be fascinating is that people have a very haughty view of the modern world and modern civilization, and they assume that people of the past were dullards (with zero evidence to support the view). I would wager that people have always been rather smart, but that we’ve merely become increasingly specialized over time.
- Maursault 4y ago
  > this is a special purpose measurement tool with some automation, and it is not a computer... The Antikythera mechanism, OTOH, is a complex, slightly automated, astrolabe. This is entirely wrong, and I don't know from where these ideas come. Nowhere in the article are the words "measurement" or "tool" used. The Antikythera mechanism does not take measurements. >> This little instrument not only predicted eclipses, but also calculated the phases of the moon, the movements of prominent stars and the revolutions of the planets – although not with accuracy. If the Antikythera mechanism does this, then it most definitely is a computer.
  - BirAdam 4y ago
    It's a tool of measurement in the same manner in which an environmental simulation is. A reproduction of a thing for the purpose of study is a form of measurement enhancement. This is also a tool in the same manner a hammer or a computer is a tool. Special purpose computational tool, perhaps. A computer in the modern sense of the word, absolutely not. It is neither general purpose nor is it Turing complete. Please note that my initial reply stressed the point of a modern understanding and use of the word computer. If people wish to call this a mechanical computer it is more similar to a differential analyzer and yet still less capable. As human beings alive after the Second World War, we have far more terms with which to accurately categorize mathematical tools. Calling something more similar to an astrolabe a computer is akin to considering a hand saw and a circular saw the same thing.
MrJohz 4y ago
I got to see this the other day! In the archeological museum in Athens, they have the recovered pieces, and a number of videos and modern replicas to try and explain how it works. It was very cool to see something like that in real life - not only the mechanism representing a tremendous amount of skill and craftsmanship, but the knowledge of how to precisely measure out decades-long patterns of celestial movement and fit them all together. Things like figuring out a slight irregularity in the pattern of the moon, and then figuring out a way to put gears together to replicate the same irregularity - and creating a device that would have been usable centuries after their lifetimes (if it hadn't sunk to the bottom of the sea, of course!) That said, the most exciting thing for me to see there was definitely the Linear B tablets, with some of the earliest texts on them that we can understand. All in all, a wonderful collection of artefacts.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
  It's an amazing piece of technology, but I read somewhere that the engineering tolerances of the gears would have caused drift/errors with the outputs that would have made it unusable without being recalibrated.
  - kijalo 4y ago
    I don't know if this would really address your comment, but clickspring [1] on YouTube has a video series creating a modern replica of the mechanism with period appropriate tools. [1] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4_jDU2 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4R...
soco 4y ago
What I'm missing, and we all should, are all the other mechanisms - whatever you call them computers or not - which came before this one. Or after. Because it certainly didn't just pop into existence but was the product of a long school of mechanism builders. Where are they? And why no more complicated ones were found? Or later ones? Wasn't it enough successful? Why?
- dTal 4y ago
  I imagine it's a similar story to why the industrial revolution did not occur in ancient times, despite elaborate steam powered machinery being known technology: insufficient demand to promote scaling the technology into affordability / practicality. Roughly speaking I imagine it took a master craftsman on the order of a year to make the Antikythera mechanism, and all it did was automate a fairly niche task that could be done relatively easily by hand anyway. It is fascinating to consider that there must have been many similar devices that we've never found, and tantalizing to wonder if there are other classes of ancient mechanical computer we're not aware of. But fundamentally, they're very very expensive toys, not ubiquitous household items like coins. Even if a thousand were made, which would take generations to do by hand, we are still lucky to have found even just one. Nearly 2000 Albatros D.III fighter aircraft were built to fight in WW1. Today, only tiny fragments survive in museums around the world. What will be left in two thousand years?

39 points by Petiver 4y ago

One important tangent from this and the other ancient wonders is the peril of proprietary information. How much earlier might humanity have achieved calculus, flight, transistors, &c if important knowledge wasn't confined to priesthoods and artisans? Don't let the know-how pass with you, say I.

jl6 4y ago
I don’t think the ancients were altogether different from us when it comes to protecting trade secrets. Innovations of military or economic value were kept secret to preserve an advantage, and they still are today. I also don’t think there’s a slam dunk answer to whether innovation is spurred more by the profit motive inherent in the proprietary approach, or by the widespread enablement of the high-openness approach.
- KineticLensman 4y ago
  Yes. Secrecy associated with silk manufacture is a great example [0]. [0].
  - account-5 4y ago
    Unsure if you missed pasting the link, or you're being ironic...
    - turtleyacht 4y ago
      This is amazing: denote empty citations as an alernate to the terminating sarcasm tag (/s). It's probably even more explicit, and we are forced to charity by the absence of reference. Imagine what wonders the wandering of undeclared references shall do to a mind numbly scrolling through comments; forced to pause, and brief attention focused on the fitting of a slotted thought.
- smitty1e 4y ago
  The historical record seems to show a great deal of knowledge being obtained, then lost. Knowledge transfer ain't bean-bag.
achrono 4y ago
Calculus, flight, transistors etc. were not delayed because of knowledge being confined, but because of knowledge being persecuted.
- smitty1e 4y ago
  (a) Both can be among the causes for slow knowledge growth (b) The past tense is by no means in order where persecution is concerned.
  - achrono 4y ago
    Sure, agreed with (a) in general that they both can be causes of decline, but in the specific case of this post, it is amply clear that the wide range of intellectual areas that ancient Greece excelled in (with barely a parallel) was radically narrowed and almost destroyed due to persecution of this knowledge rather than it being restricted to the elite. I don't understand what you're trying to say with (b).
    - smitty1e 4y ago
      (a) Euclid and Pythagoras have surviving writings, but the physical applications were lost. (b) Look at the scientists trying to view Covid accurately.

BirAdam 4y ago

So, this is a special purpose measurement tool with some automation, and it is not a computer. The way the word computer is understood today is an automatic, general purpose, stored program, electronic computer. The Antikythera mechanism, OTOH, is a complex, slightly automated, astrolabe. There is a very fundamental conceptual leap that the the astrolabe fails to make which is that all calculation can be done by a machine made of rather simple parts: switches. All of that said, I think the main reason that the Antikythera mechanism continues to be fascinating is that people have a very haughty view of the modern world and modern civilization, and they assume that people of the past were dullards (with zero evidence to support the view). I would wager that people have always been rather smart, but that we’ve merely become increasingly specialized over time.

Maursault 4y ago
> this is a special purpose measurement tool with some automation, and it is not a computer... The Antikythera mechanism, OTOH, is a complex, slightly automated, astrolabe. This is entirely wrong, and I don't know from where these ideas come. Nowhere in the article are the words "measurement" or "tool" used. The Antikythera mechanism does not take measurements. >> This little instrument not only predicted eclipses, but also calculated the phases of the moon, the movements of prominent stars and the revolutions of the planets – although not with accuracy. If the Antikythera mechanism does this, then it most definitely is a computer.
- BirAdam 4y ago
  It's a tool of measurement in the same manner in which an environmental simulation is. A reproduction of a thing for the purpose of study is a form of measurement enhancement. This is also a tool in the same manner a hammer or a computer is a tool. Special purpose computational tool, perhaps. A computer in the modern sense of the word, absolutely not. It is neither general purpose nor is it Turing complete. Please note that my initial reply stressed the point of a modern understanding and use of the word computer. If people wish to call this a mechanical computer it is more similar to a differential analyzer and yet still less capable. As human beings alive after the Second World War, we have far more terms with which to accurately categorize mathematical tools. Calling something more similar to an astrolabe a computer is akin to considering a hand saw and a circular saw the same thing.

MrJohz 4y ago

I got to see this the other day! In the archeological museum in Athens, they have the recovered pieces, and a number of videos and modern replicas to try and explain how it works. It was very cool to see something like that in real life - not only the mechanism representing a tremendous amount of skill and craftsmanship, but the knowledge of how to precisely measure out decades-long patterns of celestial movement and fit them all together. Things like figuring out a slight irregularity in the pattern of the moon, and then figuring out a way to put gears together to replicate the same irregularity - and creating a device that would have been usable centuries after their lifetimes (if it hadn't sunk to the bottom of the sea, of course!) That said, the most exciting thing for me to see there was definitely the Linear B tablets, with some of the earliest texts on them that we can understand. All in all, a wonderful collection of artefacts.

Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
It's an amazing piece of technology, but I read somewhere that the engineering tolerances of the gears would have caused drift/errors with the outputs that would have made it unusable without being recalibrated.
- kijalo 4y ago
  I don't know if this would really address your comment, but clickspring [1] on YouTube has a video series creating a modern replica of the mechanism with period appropriate tools. [1] https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4_jDU2 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4R...

soco 4y ago

What I'm missing, and we all should, are all the other mechanisms - whatever you call them computers or not - which came before this one. Or after. Because it certainly didn't just pop into existence but was the product of a long school of mechanism builders. Where are they? And why no more complicated ones were found? Or later ones? Wasn't it enough successful? Why?

dTal 4y ago
I imagine it's a similar story to why the industrial revolution did not occur in ancient times, despite elaborate steam powered machinery being known technology: insufficient demand to promote scaling the technology into affordability / practicality. Roughly speaking I imagine it took a master craftsman on the order of a year to make the Antikythera mechanism, and all it did was automate a fairly niche task that could be done relatively easily by hand anyway. It is fascinating to consider that there must have been many similar devices that we've never found, and tantalizing to wonder if there are other classes of ancient mechanical computer we're not aware of. But fundamentally, they're very very expensive toys, not ubiquitous household items like coins. Even if a thousand were made, which would take generations to do by hand, we are still lucky to have found even just one. Nearly 2000 Albatros D.III fighter aircraft were built to fight in WW1. Today, only tiny fragments survive in museums around the world. What will be left in two thousand years?