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Scientists may have finally made a complete digital model for the Cosmos panel of a 2,000-year-old mechanical device called the Antikythera Mechanism it is believed to be the world’s first computer.
First discovered in a Roman-era shipwreck by Greek sponge divers in 1900, fragments of a shoebox-sized craft, once filled with gears and used for predicting the movements of celestial bodies have both puzzled and amazed generations of researchers since.
The fragments discovered were only a third of a larger device: a highly sophisticated manual gearbox capable of accurately predicting the movements of the five planets known to the ancient Greeks, as well as the sun, moon phases, and solar and lunar eclipses —— showing them all relative to the times of ancient events such as the Olympics.
Related: Photos: Ancient Greek wreck gives way to Antikythera Mechanism
Yet despite years of careful research and debate, scientists have never been able to fully replicate the mechanism that drove the astonishing device, or the calculations used in its design, from the fragment of damaged brass and corroded found in the wreckage.
But now researchers at University College London claim to have completely recreated the design of the device, from the old calculations used to create it, and are now in the process of creating their own device to see if their design works.
“Our work reveals the Antikythera Mechanism as a beautiful design, translated by superb engineering into a genius device,” the researchers wrote on March 12 in the open access journal. Scientific reports. “It challenges all of our preconceptions about the technological capabilities of the ancient Greeks.”
Why recreate Antikythera?
The researchers wanted to recreate the device because of all the mystery surrounding it, so perhaps to get to the bottom of so many questions. Moreover, no one had ever created a model of the so-called Cosmos that reconciles with all physical evidence.
“The distance between the complexity of this device and others made at the same time is endless,” co-author Adam Wojcik, a materials scientist at UCL, told Live Science. “Frankly, there is nothing like it that has ever been found. It is out of this world.”
The intricate gears that made up the mechanism of the device are of a scale you might expect to find in a grandfather clock, but the only other gears discovered around the same time period are the larger ones that have entered. in things like ballistae or large crossbows and catapults.
This sophistication raises many questions about the manufacturing process that could have made a craft so complex, as well as why it was discovered as the only known device of its kind on an ancient ship sunk off the island of ‘Antikythera.
Related: The 20 most mysterious wrecks of all time
“What is he doing on this ship? We only found a third; where are the other two? [thirds]? Are they corroded? Has it ever worked? “Wojcik said.” These are questions we can only truly answer through experimental archeology. It’s like responding to how they built Stonehenge, let’s take 200 people with a rope and a big stone and try to pull it across Salisbury Plain. That’s kind of what we’re trying to do here. ”
Make the first computer
To create the model, the researchers drew on all previous research on the device, including that of Michael Wright, a former curator at the Science Museum in London, who had previously built a working replica. Using inscriptions found on the mechanism and a mathematical model of how the planets moved, first designed by the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides, they were able to create a the computer model for an overlapping gear mechanism that fits into a compartment just 1 inch deep (2.5 centimeters).
Related: Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism Comes With User Guide
Their model recreates each gear and rotating dial to show how the planets, sun, and moon move through the zodiac (the ancient star map) on the front side and moon phases and eclipses on the back. It reproduces the now outdated ancient Greek hypothesis that all the heavens revolved around the Earth.
Now that the computer model has been created, the researchers want to create physical versions, first using modern techniques to verify that the device is working, and then using techniques that could have been used by the ancient Greeks.
“There is no evidence that the ancient Greeks could have built anything like this. It really is a mystery,” Wojcik said. “The only way to test if they could is to try and build it the ancient Greek way.”
“And there’s also a lot of debate about who he was for and who built him. A lot of people say it was Archimedes“Wojcik said.” He lived around the same time it was built, and no one else had the same level of engineering ability as him. It was also a Roman shipwreck. Archimedes was killed by the Romans during the siege of Syracuse, after the weapons he invented failed to prevent them from capturing the city.
Mysteries also remain as to whether the ancient Greeks used similar techniques to make other devices, yet to be discovered, or whether copies of the Antikythera Mechanism are waiting to be found.
“It’s kind of like a TARDIS appeared in the Stone Age,” Wojcik said, referring to Doctor Who’s spaceship.
Originally posted on Live Science.
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