What is Digg?74 Comments
- The_Wallbanger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+50It's a shame the dark ages had to put mankind's technology on hold for 1000 years.
- 40hands, on 10/12/2007, -3/+41So the real question is: What version of Linux should we install on this thing?
- MrStylz, on 10/12/2007, -8/+41Real question is how many times do I have to log into NY Times. I despise websites like this. While easy to create a username and password (or bugmenot), it is obtrusive. I'd rather search for the same news elsewhere than use the site to condone this behaviour. Signing in is mostly for, IMHO, accessing secure, private, or user-based areas...and in the latter is typically optional.
/rant_off - Lutz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+29Yes, I will never forget the human race for that. I could have warp drive now but nooo... we had to reject all new knowledge because it didn't suit our fairy-tales.
- Shurato, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15cool device, but will it lead us to the location of the Stargate?
- foxhoundadmin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12lunar linux.
- Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10A computer in antiquity would seem to be an anachronism, like Athena ordering takeout on her cellphone.
But a century ago, pieces of a strange mechanism with bronze gears and dials were recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Greece. Historians of science concluded that this was an instrument that calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the Moon and planetary motions, in the second century B.C.
The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world’s first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high-resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and American researchers was able to decipher many inscriptions and reconstruct the gear functions, revealing, they said, “an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period.”
The researchers, led by Tony Freeth and Mike G. Edmunds, both of the University of Cardiff, Wales, are reporting the results of their study in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.
They said their findings showed that the inscriptions related to lunar-solar motions and the gears were a mechanical representation of the irregularities of the Moon’s orbital course across the sky, as theorized by the astronomer Hipparchos. They established the date of the mechanism at 150-100 B.C.
The Roman ship carrying the artifacts sank off the island of Antikythera around 65 B.C. Some evidence suggests that the ship had sailed from Rhodes. The researchers speculated that Hipparchos, who lived on Rhodes, might have had a hand in designing the device.
In another article in the journal, a scholar not involved in the research, François Charette of the University of Munich museum, in Germany, said the new interpretation of the Antikythera Mechanism “is highly seductive and convincing in all of its details.” It is not the last word, he concluded, “but it does provide a new standard, and a wealth of fresh data, for future research.”
Historians of technology think the instrument is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterward.
The mechanism, presumably used in preparing calendars for seasons of planting and harvesting and fixing religious festivals, had at least 30, possibly 37, hand-cut bronze gear-wheels, the researchers reported. An ingenious pin-and-slot device connecting two gear-wheels induced variations in the representation of lunar motions according to the Hipparchos model of the Moon’s elliptical orbit around Earth.
The functions of the mechanism were determined by the numbers of teeth in the gears. The 53-tooth count of certain gears, the researchers said, was “powerful confirmation of our proposed model of Hipparchos’ lunar theory.”
The detailed imaging revealed more than twice as many inscriptions as had been recognized from earlier examinations. Some of these appeared to relate to planetary as well as lunar motions. Perhaps, the researchers said, the mechanism also had gearings to predict the positions of known planets.
Dr. Charette noted that more than 1,000 years elapsed before instruments of such complexity are known to have re-emerged. A few artifacts and some Arabic texts suggest that simpler geared calendrical devices had existed, particularly in Baghdad around A.D. 900.
It seems clear, Dr. Charette said, that “much of the mind-boggling technological sophistication available in some parts of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman world was simply not transmitted further,” adding, “The gear-wheel, in this case, had to be reinvented.” - foxhoundadmin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9here, let me fix that for you:
"Yeah, but if that would have been passed on we wouldN'T exist as the persons that we are, but that's just my paradoxal mind. :-)" - vmerc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@The Wallbanger
Actually the dark ages only covered just over 500 years. I agree with your sentiment though. - RKnight, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I was just thinking, as a world culture, in general the Roman/Greek time period was far more advanced then anything that came after it for some time, (ie. Medieval Times). I wonder where we would be technology-wise if we never lost all that information and continued on the track they started... we could literally be hundreds of years more advanced then we are today. Hmm, I guess that's part of life's little built-in checks and balances...
- VorpalK, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10This was posted 7 hours before the other story.
- danieldrehmer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9"It seems clear, Dr. Charette said, that 'much of the mind-boggling technological sophistication available in some parts of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman world was simply not transmitted further,' adding, 'The gear-wheel, in this case, had to be reinvented.'"
That's revolting. Think of how the technology would be nowadays if such knowledge had been passed further and improved. - Dunadan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8See! This story is proof of intelligent design...
...but after reading your post I'm wondering where that intelligence has gotten to. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Yep, And a buggy driver too. :)
- ostracize, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7476 A.D. to 1453 A.D. was a period of repression and ignorance NOWHERE except in Europe.
The European hegemony of a few centuries ago leads us to believe that European history == Human history. We can just as easily blame the Church as we can blame the other cultures for not dominating Europe. - CosmoP, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8The only group you need to worry about putting us in a new Dark Age are the Muslims. Sharia Law anyone?
- shifty2, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7did it have a special proprietary connector for pipes?
- pr0t3st, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I submitted this story over a year ago......
http://digg.com/tech_news/The_Antikythera_Computer - CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@ JimV,
I can suggest you read the book _How The Irish Saved Civilization_ by Thomas Cahill. His companion book, _Sailing The Wine Dark Sea_, complements with background information about the very people who built the Antikythera mechanism.
It was indeed the myopia of the Catholic Church that caused the dark ages, specifically because they burned books. If you cannot grasp that simple fact, and allow the blame to fall on the people responsible, then you are not being reasonable. It doesn't take any leap of faith to realize that those people are not the people in power in the Church now, but it was the Church _then_.
History is not linear. One of the greatest fallacies of history itself is that things progress always forward. No. There is constant regression, falling back, pushing forward, lost knowledge, rediscovery. The medical techniques of Galen were only rediscovered in the 19th century, but Galen did not have anesthetic or antiseptic.
True indeed that it was _Western_ civilization which experienced these dark ages. Yet even with a thousand years head start, China, India and the Middle East never advanced. Why not?
Why, after successfully discovering at least half the world, did the Chinese bureaucrats burn the log books of the great navigator Zeng He?
Why, with the knowledge of zero long before the rest of the world, didn't an Indian discover calculus?
At least the west has the hide-bound Catholic Church to blame. I _like_ being able to identify the bad guys in a story.
BTW, the Greeks had both magnificent "clockwork" technology, like the Antikythera Mechanism, _and_ steam power. Why did it take another 2000 years before someone decided to push a piston with that steam pressure? Sure, the dark ages in _Europe_ can be blamed for much of that time lost, but as has been so clearly pointed out elsewhere, that was just Europe.
(Personally, I blame the fact that bureaucracy hates change. The stronger the bureaucracy, such as the Catholic Church or the Chinese Mandarins, the more they crush innovation.) - Corrosionx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6@glooper23: Religion is not the problem. It is only a problem when religion wields governmental power. Power is the problem. Government is the new religion.
Goverments today are as much as a threat to innovation and individual freedom as religion once was. - SportBilly, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6191462.stm
For people who don't want to register with NY times. - SeBBBe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I cant wait til someome runs a web server on this thing
- swoosh_bnd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://www.bugmenot.com/view/www.nytimes.com
- webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Greex Linux. Based on Red Toga.
- ptrcd003, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7My one year old computer has that..maybe if you didn't shop at Walmart..
- jakebarnes, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4What everyone is ignoring is the fact that "war tech" took off during this period. This is something has given us many many many uses outside of the inventions original purpose. ie, steel. The reason that "europe was not overrun (thankfully), is because they were strong millitarily. People tried, and failed, because Europe had the best weapons. These were inventions.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7@foxhoundadmin
I'm not an advocate of religion, but you can show just as many positive effects of religion as negative. - Dihuko, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5It should be able to play Doom
- rowlodge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2so you can digg this down or what?
- Neem, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5I think The_Wallbanger meant 1000 years not because the dark ages lasted 1K yearss .. but because the quantifiable amount of discoveries in science has moved in a somewhat exponential way ... so by losing 400-500 years ( thank you Christianity ) back then we would be at a level of technological advancement ( which if it could be quantified ) would be speculatively at par with the tech advancement expected 1000 years into the future from now
- foxhoundadmin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6it's pointless to install vista on my ONE-YEAR-OLD COMPUTER, because it doesn't have two gigs of ram or dx9.0 with pixel shader 2.0.
- webcrumb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Woo! Crosspost time!
Interesting how Venus is mentioned on the device, yet the device is Greek who at this time called the planet Aphrodite.*
Seeing as the device was found in the wreck of a Roman ship, this must have been created for export. So even in the Roman Empire technology jobs were outsourced. :D
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus#Venus_in_human_culture - raid517, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I don't care if you don't like it. It's still fuking true. So Ill say it again and I'll keep saying it.
"It's a shame the dark ages had to put mankind's technology on hold for 1000 years."
Yeah - which coincidentally was around the same time that Christianity really started to take hold.
Anyway the way things are going - and with the rise in influence and power of the Christian religious right, we may have a second dark age to look forward to if we are not careful.
"The only group you need to worry about putting us in a new Dark Age are the Muslims. Sharia Law anyone?"
Hah classic! You tell us that Christianity isn't a threat - then you go and display a classic example of Western ignorance and Islamaphobia.
"It's probably a frickin' Victorian music box that fell off a cruise ship in the late 30's or something.
Give me a break about the whole "Teh christians caused us to be held back!!!" You don't imagine that the Roman empire conquering most of the civilized (western) world (including the Greeks), and then falling apart, had something to do with the dark ages?"
Haha... Oh yeah that's right I forgot scientists are dumb... and all that carbon dating stuff and whatnot is a pile of nonsense. - and even though you never made it passed grade school (which is apparent in your perception of history), you still feel perfectly qualified to write of decades off research by some of the world's most highly qualified historians and archaeologists.
In any case FYI the Roman Empire did a great deal in terms of promoting civilization and scientific discovery - both the Roman and Greek periods of history were phenomenal periods of scientific inquiry - and also of some truly amazing engineering and genuine innovation. The Roman empire itself only really began to fall apart when the first truly Christian Emperors Constantine, thought that he could strengthen his power base in Rome by lobbing and actively seeking the support of a then growing movement who had achieved many positions of real power and influence within that society. (So to this extent I think it would really be very odd if no one saw any parallels with the current rise of the Christian religious right in America) Ultimately this decision (among several other factors) led to the downfall of Rome (just as one day it may lead to the downfall of America) and led subsequently to a thousand years of darkness, intimidation and oppression and to that period that we commonly refer to as the the dark ages.
You might not like it - but as I said, that is irrelevant. The fact is that Christianity when left unchecked has never been conducive to any real kind of technological or scientific inquiry. - JimV, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It's probably a frickin' Victorian music box that fell off a cruise ship in the late 30's or something.
Give me a break about the whole "Teh christians caused us to be held back!!!" You don't imagine that the Roman empire conquering most of the civilized (western) world (including the Greeks), and then falling apart, had something to do with the dark ages? - piratebill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Its not a computer, just a fancy gear box. Its like someone comparing a slide-rule to a computer.
- jakebarnes, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4But can it run linux?
- JoeBlunt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Too bad they didn't find the lost warp drive at the bottom of the ocean.
Seriously, there's a bunch of other ancient inventions that people mistake as only modern day ideas. Take the battery for example. Ancient batteries were found in India but nobody knows what they powered. - antdude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/science/30computecnd.html?ex=1322456400&en=e3a6e898fb3871e3&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss from http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink
- rowlodge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1in 2000 years, people will still wonder if we built stuff today by aliens help.
- nysus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2From the article: "The Roman ship carrying the artifacts sank off the island of Antikythera around 65 B.C."
This was a "computer" used for navigating a ship. Guess it couldn't have been too good. - Drizzit, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Link to same story on BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6191462.stm - CurtHowland, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1But... "computer" means someone who adds up numbers. Why are people using that word when referring to a machine?
- dherman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1After the romans forced the jews to stop declaring a new month based on the moon, they switched over to an algorythmic system for determining the months. They would have had to have the same or similar knowledege to accomplish this.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ Corrosionx
Agreed. - 42kami, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1"It seems clear, Dr. Charette said, that 'much of the mind-boggling technological sophistication available in some parts of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman world was simply not transmitted further,' adding, 'The gear-wheel, in this case, had to be reinvented.'"
You can thank Judeo-Christianity for setting human civilization back technologically and scientifically a millenium.
WTG...!
Bastards. -_- - dextermanas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0nysus: TFA clearly says that it was a computer used for calculating lunar phases, seasonal harvest days, religious dates, and the like. Nothing about navigation.
- peter303, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Genius invention?
We have examples of single individuals inventing great things in their lifetime. Newton with universal gravitation, calculas and optics; Galileo the telescope and laws of motion, Imtehop the great pyramids, Archimedes, DaVinci, and so on.
I wonder if this was an isolated genius or a tradition of craftsmaking. Some of these guys could have invented things that ere never written down and are lost. - dextermanas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0MrStylz and Mister326:
What are you guys talking about? NYT doesn't require registration. I mean I always read NYT articles and I've never registered there. - sfacets, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Somebody should install Linux on it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Are you arguing for or against it.
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