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Re: Antikythera mechanism
From: Geoffrey Kolbe
Date: 2016 Oct 19, 07:34 +0100

Almost certainly, the Antikythera mechanism was not unique in the ancient world. One striking feature of the mechanism is that there are no mistakes - no indications that the maker discovered some section did not work as expected and so he tried again a different way, or half way through some section he found a better way to make it - something we see, for example, in Harrison's clocks which were one-offs. This is an indication that the mechanism was a tried and tested design and had been developed to a state of perfection in previous examples.

The ancient Roman author Cicero writing in the 1st century BC (and living at the time of the Antikythera shipwreck), mentions that his friend and teacher Poseidonius had recently constructed a device ‘which at each revolution reproduces the same motions of the sun, the moon, and the five planets that take place in the heavens every day and night.’ Cicero also mentions that Archimedes had made a similar device.

There were a number of striking innovations in the mechanism, including a peg-and-slot rendering of the Tusi-couple to mimic the motion of the moon. The Persian astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi invented the idea in the 13th century to deal with non-circular orbits of the planets - only the Greeks had evidently got there almost one and half millennia earlier!

Geoffrey Kolbe

On 18 October 2016 at 18:18, Francis Upchurch <NoReply_Upchurch@fer3.com> wrote:

Wonderful,
Not a lot new under the sun when it comes to the Greeks.
As a diver of 40+ years experience, I know the chance of finding this was pretty astronomical. (sorry about the pun.) Surely there should be other examples or documents relating to this?
If unique, even more amazing. A bit like life on earth. ( where are the other examples out there? ET where are you?)
One of the attractions of Cel Nav for me is the shear infinity of the universe and our ability to measure a few selected angles from bodies hundreds/ thousands of light years away, and know roughly where we are right now. The few photons hitting our retinas after a journey lasting maybe thousands of years , tells us, with a bit of simple maths, where we are now! Miraculous or what?
Francis

Dr Geoffrey Kolbe, Riccarton Farm, Newcastleton, Scotland, TD9 0SN

Tel: 013873 76715

Mob: 0773 8069 663

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