In mapping eclipses, world's first
computer maybe also told fortunes
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[June 10, 2016]
By Michele Kambas
ATHENS (Reuters) - A 2,000-year-old
astronomical calculator used by ancient Greeks to chart the movement of
the sun, moon and planets may also have had another purpose - fortune
telling, say researchers.
Heralded as the world's first computer, the Antikythera Mechanism
is a system of intricate bronze gears dating to around 60 BC, used
by ancient Greeks to track solar and lunar eclipses.
It was retrieved from a shipwreck discovered off the Greek island of
Antikythera in 1901.
While researchers had previously focused on its internal mechanisms,
a decades-long study is now attempting to decode minute inscriptions
on the remaining fragments of its outer surfaces.
"It confirms that the mechanism displayed planets as well as showing
the position of the sun and the moon in the sky," said Mike Edmunds,
an astrophysics professor from the University of Cardiff in Wales
who is part of the research project team.
But in creating heaven's mirror, its ancient engineers may have also
given in to a less scientific urge - man's perpetual curiosity about
what the future holds.
Edmunds, who has worked on the project for about 12 years, said
decoding of the inscriptions also threw up an interesting nugget -
the color of a forthcoming eclipse.
"We are not quite sure how to interpret this, to be fair, but it
could hark back to suggestions that the color of an eclipse was some
sort of omen or signal. Certain colors might be better for what's
coming than other colors," he told a presentation in Athens.
"If that is so, and we are interpreting that correctly, this is the
first instance we have in the mechanism of any real mention of
astrology rather than astronomy," he said.
Nonetheless, the overriding objective of the mechanism was
astronomical and not astrological, he said.
"The texts were meant to help the viewer to understand what was the
meaning of all the different points and dials, what it would teach
them about the cosmos that they lived in ... and about how, through
cycles of time this related to their lives," said Alexander Jones, a
history professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient
World in New York.
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Visitors look at the displayed fragments of the ancient Antikythera
Mechanism at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece
June 9, 2016. REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis
NOT UNIQUE
Researchers say the device was probably made on the island of Rhodes
and do not think it was unique. It's only unique in the sense that
it is the only one ever found.
Slight variations in the inscriptions point to at least two people
being involved in that, and there could have been more people making
its gears.
"You get the idea that this perhaps came from a small workshop
rather than one individual," said Edmunds.
More than a dozen pieces of classical literature, stretched over a
period from about 300 BC to 500 AD, make references to devices such
as that found at Antikythera, he said.
The calculator could add, multiply, divide and subtract. It was also
able to align the number of lunar months with years and display
where the sun and the moon were in the zodiac.
It did contain certain imperfections, but yielded a clear snapshot
of the astronomical knowledge at the time, said Jones.
"If you looked in the sky you would still see the body that the
mechanism was showing, roughly, in the place of the mechanism, but
it would not be very exact."
But it is unclear what happened for that technology to have been
lost. Its mechanical complexity would be unrivalled for at least
another 1,000 years until the appearance of medieval clocks in
European cathedrals.
(Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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