The Antikythera Mechanism

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"And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."
...Kahlil Gibran The Prophet (from the first chapter: "The Coming of The Ship") ¹

Clock Repair Archive - -

The Antikythera Mechanism:

Be very careful in your assumptions about the extent of our knowledge in this century compared to what has been known in the past. Society's knowledge of gears, gear ratios, and mechanical devices goes back considerably longer in time than a few hundred years. The Greek scientists had built a bronze mechanical device similar to a clock in that it had gears using complicated ratios, sizes and combinations of gears. This device was built around 80 BC and was discovered in a shipwreck near Greece in 1900. For a long time the scientific community of the time refused to admit that the Greeks could have built anything like this mechanism, yet recently it has been shown to be authentic and has significantly altered established ideas of what the ancient people were capable of. The existence of this device, which was used to compute the seasons and positions of stars and possibly the passage of time in lunar units shows us that the art of brass and bronze gear making goes back thousands of years. . . but don't take my word for it; here are some links to information about this fantastic discovery:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap061205.html

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:NAMA_Machine_d%27Anticyth%C3%A8re_1.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_Mechanism

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7119/abs/nature05357.html

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rrice/apagadgt.html

The following, which was taken from Wikipedia, lists many references that are not necessarily "websites":

    * Yalouris, N. (1990). "Ceramic and Iconographic Studies in Honour of Alexander Cambitoglou". Eumousia: 135. *Zeeman, E. C., (1986). 
      "Gears From The Ancient Greeks". Proc. Roy. Inst. GB 58: 137-156.  (See also the slides from a lecture here [2], slide 22 is a 
       view of how the mechanism for a model comes to replace actual reality).
    * Weinberg, G. D.; Grace, V. R., Edwards, G. R., Robinson, H. S;, Throckmorton, P., & Ralph, E. K. (1965). 
      "The Antikythera Shipwreck Reconsidered". Trans Am Philos. Soc. 55 (New Series) (3): 3-48. 
    * Toomer, G. J. (1998). Ptolemy's Almagest (trans. Toomer, G. J.). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press. 
    * Steele, J. M. (2000). "Eclipse prediction in Mesopotamia". Arch. Hist. Exact Sci. 54: 421-454. 
    * Steele, J. M. (2000). Observations and Predictions of Eclipse Times by Early Astronomers. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic. 
    * Stephenson, F. R. (1997). Historical Eclipses and the Earth's Rotation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. 
    * Charette, François (2006). "High tech from Ancient Greece". Nature 444: 551-552. DOI:10.1038/444551a. 
    * Britton. (1985). "The Design of Astronomical Gear Trains". Horological Journal 128 (6): 19-23. 
    * Bromley, J. P. (1993). in Die Rolle der Astronomie in den Kulturen Mesopotamiens (ed. Galter, H. D.). Graz: rm-Druck & 
      Vergansgesellschaft, 61-67. 
    * Price, D. de S. (1959). "An Ancient Greek Computer". Scientific American 200 (6): 60-67.  see "An Ancient Greek Computer
    * Price, D. de S. (1975). "Gears from the Greeks: The Antkythera Mechanism - A Calendar Computer from ca 80BC". Trans Am Philos. 
      Soc., New Series 64 (7). 
    * Price, Derek J. de Solla (1975). Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism - A Calendar Computer from ca. 80 BC. 
      New York: Science History Publications. ISBN 0-87169-647-9. 
    * Rice R. S. (4 - 7 September 1997). "Physical and Intellectual Salvage from the 1st Century BC". USNA Eleventh Naval History Symposium:
      19-25.  see The Antikythera Mechanism
    * Rosheim, Mark E. (1994). Robot Evolution: The Development of Anthrobotics. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-02622-0.. 
    * Steele (1994). Robot Evolution: The Development of Anthrobotics. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 0-471-02622-0.. 
    * Russell, Rupert, The Antikythera Mechanism
    * Jones, A. (1991). "The adaptation of Babylonian methods in Greek numerical astronomy". Isis 82: 440-453. 
    * Jacques Cousteau. The Cousteau Odyssey: Diving for Roman Plunder [Tape]. Warner Home Video/KCET, Los Angeles.
    * Edmunds, Mike & Morgan, Philip (2000). "The Antikythera Mechanism: Still a Mystery of Greek Astronomy". 
      Astronomy & Geophysics 41: 6-10. DOI:10.1046/j.1468-4004.2000.41610.x.  (The authors mention that an "extended account" 
      of their researches titled "Computing Aphrodite" is forthcoming in 2001, but it does not seem to have appeared as of yet.)
    * Freeth, T. (2002). "The Antikythera Mechanism: 1. Challenging the Classic Research". 
      Mediterranean Archeology and Archeaometry 2 (1): 21-35. 
    * Freeth, T. (2002). "The Antikyhera Mechanism: 2. Is it Posidonius' Orrery?". Mediterranean Archeology and Archeaometry 2 (2). 
    * Freeth, T.; Bitsakis, Y., Moussas, X., Seiradakis, J. H., Tselikas, A., Mankou, E., Zafeiropulou, M., Hadland, R., Bate, D., 
      Ramsey, A., Allen, M., Crawley, A., Hockley, P., Malzbender, T., Gelb, D., Ambrisco, W., & Edmunds, M. G. (2006). 
     "Decoding the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism". Nature 444: 587-591. DOI:10.1038/nature05357. 
    * James, Peter; Thorpe, Nick (1995). Ancient Inventions. New York: Ballantine. ISBN 0-345-40102-6. 
    * Bromley, A. G. (1986). "The Design of Astronomical Gear Trains (b)". Horological Journal 128 (9): 10-11. 
    * Bromley, A. G. (1986). "Notes on the Antikythera Mechanism". Centaurus 29: 5. 
    * Bromley, A. G. (1990). "The Antikythera Mechanism". Horological Journal 132: 412-415. 
    * Bromley, A. G. (1990). "The Antikythera Mechanism: A Reconstruction". Horological Journal 133 (1): 28-31. 
    * Bromley, A. G. (1990). "Observations of the Antikythera Mechanism". Antiquarian Horology 18 (6): 641-652. 
    * Cary, M. A. (1970). History of Rome. London: Macmillan, 334.

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¹ The quote is taken from Kahlil Gibran's book The Prophet originally published in 1923; Ninety-second printing, December 1973. Alfred Knopf, New York.

Copyright (c) 2002 David Tarsi. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the Invariant Sections being no invariant sections, with the Front-Cover Texts being no Front-Cover Texts, and with the Back-Cover Texts being no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".