http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/07/jo-marchant-consultant-from-sw.html
QuoteJuly 29, 2009 12:59 PM
World's first computer may be even older than thought
antik1.jpgJo Marchant, consultant
From Swiss Army knives to iPhones, it seems we just love fancy gadgets with as many different functions as possible. And judging from the ancient Greek Antikythera mechanism, the desire to impress with the latest multipurpose must-have item goes back at least 2000 years.
This mysterious box of tricks was a portable clockwork computer, dating from the first or second century BC. Operated by turning a handle on the side, it modelled the movements of the Sun, Moon and planets through the sky, sported a local calendar, star calendar and Moon-phase display, and could even predict eclipses and track the timing of the Olympic games.
... [MOAR (http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/07/jo-marchant-consultant-from-sw.html)]...
They backdated it due to a recent translation of one of the regional Games that went into the Olympic scheduler that this Blackberry
BC had equipped. Also, go see the updated animation. As someone with 3d training, working out that quality from x-ray scans was srsly impressive.
THAT is incredible.
Ugh, stupid people in the comments are insisting that it's not a computer.
Its not. A computer is programmable. (Or an actual person, if we're talking pre WWII terminology).
i'm not an expert on the terminology but wouldn't the construction of the components be constituted as 'the programming'?
Yes. It calculates the positions of planets in future dates among many other things. It's absolutely stunning the kind of craftsmanship and mathematics that had to go into making it.
Quote from: BADGE OF HONOR on August 03, 2009, 06:42:39 AM
Yes. It calculates the positions of planets in future dates among many other things. It's absolutely stunning the kind of craftsmanship and mathematics that had to go into making it.
Especially considering that they were using a geocentric model of the Solar System. I still can't believe that it took them that long to figure out that the sun goes in the middle.
Quote from: 冷蔵庫 ც℧ℜℕ∫ on August 03, 2009, 06:40:31 AM
i'm not an expert on the terminology but wouldn't the construction of the components be constituted as 'the programming'?
No thats engineering. If you try to change what it does the entire device fails. You have to build from the ground up (or nearly) to create a similar device that adds in the planets that have been discovered since it was created.
Further, a computer is based on symbolic logic, this thing probably predates formal logic, and almost certainly predates any formal logic more advanced than Aristotle's.
That said, building this thing would be soooo much harder than writing any piddling computer program.
We really don't give the ancients enough credit nowadays :argh
They were some pretty smart dudes, building this crap while fending off dinosaurs.
Quote from: Havok on August 28, 2009, 07:47:07 AM
We really don't give the ancients enough credit nowadays :argh
They were some pretty smart dudes, building this crap while fending off dinosaurs.
we give them
too much credit. I suspect some kind of Flintstones / Jetsons crossover.
(http://www.ezthemes.com/previews/t/theageof.jpg)
I think I read a slashfic like that once...
Quote from: Requia ☣ on August 03, 2009, 06:27:48 AM
Its not. A computer is programmable. (Or an actual person, if we're talking pre WWII terminology).
:facepalm:
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=computer
I'm sorry, I forgot dictionary people were experts in the field of mathematical history. :roll:
http://www.cciw.com/content/computer_etymology.html better link,
Edit: I just proved myself wrong didn't I?
Yep!
Dictionary people, BTW, don't have to be experts at anything except word definitions.
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on August 03, 2009, 07:05:34 AM
Quote from: BADGE OF HONOR on August 03, 2009, 06:42:39 AM
Yes. It calculates the positions of planets in future dates among many other things. It's absolutely stunning the kind of craftsmanship and mathematics that had to go into making it.
Especially considering that they were using a geocentric model of the Solar System. I still can't believe that it took them that long to figure out that the sun goes in the middle.
Just because beliefs, opinions, and theories aren't the same doesn't mean they're safe from conflation (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conflate).
Quote from: yhnmzw on September 04, 2009, 09:45:02 AM
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on August 03, 2009, 07:05:34 AM
Quote from: BADGE OF HONOR on August 03, 2009, 06:42:39 AM
Yes. It calculates the positions of planets in future dates among many other things. It's absolutely stunning the kind of craftsmanship and mathematics that had to go into making it.
Especially considering that they were using a geocentric model of the Solar System. I still can't believe that it took them that long to figure out that the sun goes in the middle.
Just because beliefs, opinions, and theories aren't the same doesn't mean they're safe from conflation (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conflate).
If you're starting from scratch, it can take a lot of observation and recording to figure out what's really going on with the world. We're still figuring it out; consider how much we know we don't know, and then extrapolate from that how much we don't know we don't know. It's vasty deep.
"vasty"--oooh! *files that to put to usage soonish*
:D
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on September 04, 2009, 07:41:49 PM
Quote from: yhnmzw on September 04, 2009, 09:45:02 AM
Quote from: Iason Ouabache on August 03, 2009, 07:05:34 AM
Quote from: BADGE OF HONOR on August 03, 2009, 06:42:39 AM
Yes. It calculates the positions of planets in future dates among many other things. It's absolutely stunning the kind of craftsmanship and mathematics that had to go into making it.
Especially considering that they were using a geocentric model of the Solar System. I still can't believe that it took them that long to figure out that the sun goes in the middle.
Just because beliefs, opinions, and theories aren't the same doesn't mean they're safe from conflation (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/conflate).
If you're starting from scratch, it can take a lot of observation and recording to figure out what's really going on with the world. We're still figuring it out; consider how much we know we don't know, and then extrapolate from that how much we don't know we don't know. It's vasty deep.
I guess I was unclear. Sorry about that.
This guy at least entertained the hypothesis of "The Sun is bigger than the Earth and is orbited by it."--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos
A matter of speculation became a matter of settled fact without going through any measure of proof. I've been taking a freshman astronomy course of late.
Quote from: yhnmzw on September 05, 2009, 09:57:46 PM
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on September 04, 2009, 07:41:49 PM
If you're starting from scratch, it can take a lot of observation and recording to figure out what's really going on with the world. We're still figuring it out; consider how much we know we don't know, and then extrapolate from that how much we don't know we don't know. It's vasty deep.
I guess I was unclear. Sorry about that.
This guy at least entertained the hypothesis of "The Sun is bigger than the Earth and is orbited by it."--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos
A matter of speculation became a matter of settled fact without going through any measure of proof. I've been taking a freshman astronomy course of late.
They really didn't have any good reason to believe in a heliocentric universe back then. For the ancients it wasn't really about data, it was about what seemed like an elegant solution to the problem. A few suggested
For most, though, it made more sense to think of the earth as the "sump" of the universe, since everything falls down anyway. And the Ptolemaic model is extremely elegant, especially considering that when you watch the movements of planets from earth it really does look like they are orbiting in little circles around points that move around us in a big circle. You'd have had to be crazy or very deep in the philosophy of the Stoics to believe that the sun is the "central fire" of the universe, rather than believe what your own eyes tell you, that the sun is situated in the heavens and goes around the earth.
At any rate, isn't it all relative? I was reading Hound of the Baskervilles recently and there's an interesting conversation there where Dr. Watson is surprised that Sherlock Holmes is "supremely indifferent" to the question of whether the "earth goes round the sun" or vice versa. As long as the math works out right and the model is predicting things accurately, it's only a question of semantics. So as long as there was a working model in Ptolemy (and the antethykira device shows that is sure as hell worked), there was probably not much interest to the practically-minded of the ancients.
Quote from: Guy_Incognito on September 25, 2009, 11:12:04 PM
Quote from: yhnmzw on September 05, 2009, 09:57:46 PM
Quote from: The Lord and Lady Omnibus Fuck on September 04, 2009, 07:41:49 PM
If you're starting from scratch, it can take a lot of observation and recording to figure out what's really going on with the world. We're still figuring it out; consider how much we know we don't know, and then extrapolate from that how much we don't know we don't know. It's vasty deep.
I guess I was unclear. Sorry about that.
This guy at least entertained the hypothesis of "The Sun is bigger than the Earth and is orbited by it."--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos
A matter of speculation became a matter of settled fact without going through any measure of proof. I've been taking a freshman astronomy course of late.
They really didn't have any good reason to believe in a heliocentric universe back then. For the ancients it wasn't really about data, it was about what seemed like an elegant solution to the problem. A few suggested
For most, though, it made more sense to think of the earth as the "sump" of the universe, since everything falls down anyway. And the Ptolemaic model is extremely elegant, especially considering that when you watch the movements of planets from earth it really does look like they are orbiting in little circles around points that move around us in a big circle. You'd have had to be crazy or very deep in the philosophy of the Stoics to believe that the sun is the "central fire" of the universe, rather than believe what your own eyes tell you, that the sun is situated in the heavens and goes around the earth.
At any rate, isn't it all relative? I was reading Hound of the Baskervilles recently and there's an interesting conversation there where Dr. Watson is surprised that Sherlock Holmes is "supremely indifferent" to the question of whether the "earth goes round the sun" or vice versa. As long as the math works out right and the model is predicting things accurately, it's only a question of semantics. So as long as there was a working model in Ptolemy (and the antethykira device shows that is sure as hell worked), there was probably not much interest to the practically-minded of the ancients.
I have my doubts about the phrase "practically-minded ancient". Calculating a pair of elliptical orbits is a simpler problem than approximating the direction straight there using something I consider analogous or identical to a Fourier series but less systematic. The Ptolemaic "epicycles and more epicycles" technique was intricate, but ultimately brutal. I'm not sure I could convince an ancient of that fact, though.