2000 year old computer had Olympic roots
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog on
Over 100 years ago sponge divers discovered something much more exciting, and much less spongy, than their usual catch near the island of Antikythera. The Antikythera Mechanism as it became known has fascinated and confused the scientific community ever since. Until now, that is.
It has been dated back to the 1st century BC, no doubt about that.
It has been described as the most sophisticated mechanism known from the ancient world, no doubt about that either.
There is even no doubt that the Antikythera Mechanism is something to do with astronomy. The geared device appears to track cycles of the solar system. A device to calculate and track dates you might say.
The world’s first computer, some will argue.
But now researchers have announced that they think know just what this computer was used to calculate: the dates of the very first. Yes, it was an Olympic calculator it would appear.
The fact that it could work out the cycles and phases of sun and moon is no surprise, that has been taken as a given for the longest time. But the deciphering of inscriptions relating to the original Olympic games does make for fascinating, and really very timely indeed, reading.
Not least because, as researchers writing in Nature report, this thing is more technically complex than any device made over the next millennium.
Using high resolution X-rays and surface imaging, the boffins reconstructed the gear function via the fragmented inscriptions and discovered the Babylonian arithmetic-progression cycle calculator.
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