Antikythera mechanism

We've been in some dark places here.

Now we're going to talk about the Antikythera mechanism.

That's perhaps the most significant out-of-place artifact in archaeological history.

It's a device that shatters our linear understanding of technological process.

For decades, it sat in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, largely ignored as researchers focused on the beautiful statues.

It wasn't until the 1950s that physicist and historian Derek J. de Solla Price took an interest, realizing that the lump contained a series of interlocking precision-cut gears.

The Antikythera mechanism is essentially the world's first analog computer.

Yes, believe it or not.

memory.

Chapter 2 The Antikythera Mechanism

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A correspondence detailed enough that several researchers on the imaging project have suggested the mechanism's designer may have had direct, first-hand access to Hipparchus' own astronomical tables, whether or not Hipparchus himself had any personal involvement in the device's actual construction.

None

of this proves who specifically built the Antikythera mechanism.

It only narrows the most plausible intellectual neighborhood it came from, a genuine tradition of Greek mechanical astronomy on Rhodes.

All right, let's do it.

So it's called the Anti-Kythera Mechanism.

Hand-powered...

Orrery, built in the 2nd century BC and discovered in 1901, is the oldest known example of an analog computer.

So that's a long, long time where technology maybe not stagnated, but it really didn't progress as fast as it might have had we had this knowledge and been able to spread it, and had we not had the collapse that sort of arrested a lot of the development.

So you can talk about that, and also devices like the, uh, Antikythera mechanism, which is another one I talk about in the book.

Let's go right into that.

Tell us about that.

We've been in some dark places here.

Now we're gonna talk about the Antikythera mechanism.

That's perhaps the most significant out-of-place artifact in archeological history.

It's a device that shatters our linear understanding of technological process.

For decades, it sat in the National Archeological Museum in Athens, largely ignored as researchers focused on the beautiful statues.

It wasn't until the 1950s that physicist and historian Derek J. de Solla Price took an interest, realizing that the lump contained a series of interlocking precision-cut gears.

The Antikythera mechanism is essentially the world's first analog computer.

Yes, believe it or not.

And the more we dig, literally and figuratively, the more we realise how much we don't know.

Let's start with something concrete, something you can go see in a museum right now if you want to feel your understanding of ancient technology completely rearranged, the Antikythera Mechanism.

found in a shipwreck off the greek island of antikythera in nineteen o one this device sat in storage for decades because nobody could figure out what the hell it was just a corroded lump of bronze with gears inside interesting but not earth-shattering Then researchers started actually examining it properly, X-raying it, mapping the gear trains, reconstructing how it worked, and what they found was impossible.

Except it wasn't impossible because it was right there in their hands.

The Antikythera mechanism is an astronomical calculator built around 100 BCE.

but it's not just any calculator it contains differential gearing technology that wouldn't appear again in human history until the eighteenth century it could predict eclipses track the movements of the sun and moon follow the paths of planets even account for the irregular orbit of the moon using epicyclic gearing that represents mathematical concepts we didn't think the ancient greeks understood in quite this way it's got at least thirty meshing bronze gears in a device no bigger than a shoe-box the precision required to craft those gears by hand is staggering the astronomical knowledge encoded in its gear ratios is profound And here's what really keeps archaeologists awake at night.

It can't be the only one.

There had to be earlier versions, simpler prototypes, a whole technological tradition of mechanical engineering that produced this masterpiece.

They found the chest, pulled it outside, and Pessimism decided to summon the power of her Papa Hades to boil the ocean, which took care of the Hydrakkin for the final time, but also caused the wreckage of the Argo to explode from the pressure buildup of the steam inside of the wreckage.

So they all swam back up to the surface and opened up the treasure chest and discovered that inside was the Antikythera mechanism, an astrological charting computer of sorts, a mechanical computer that they used to chart when the full moon would obscure Pisces on Hercules's birthday, which happens to be February 29th as we all know.

[laughs]

And that the spindle would point them in the correct direction.

So they began following the spindle of the Antikythera mechanism, and along the way discovered that somebody had tampered with the Declaration of Independence's robot body and that there were false memories being projected into its mind.

But we left with them having reached one of the landmarks from Jason and the Argonauts, the Symplegades, Symplegades, Symplegades, something like that, the clashing rocks, two cliffs that would try to crush whatever boat sailed between them if they didn't go fast enough.

And that is where we're going to pick up.

You got it.