The Antikythera Mechanism Explained with Dr. Tony Freeth

Learn the secrets of the enigmatic Antikythera Mechanism, a remarkable ancient device with intricate gears and astonishing astronomical functions that have astounded researchers for centuries.

Dr. Tony Freeth is a founding member of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project and an Honorary Senior Research Associate at University College, London. He holds degrees in Mathematics from Cambridge University (UK) and Bristol University (UK). His work on the Antikythera Mechanism has been published in Nature (Freeth et al, Nature 2006 and Freeth et al, Nature 2008) as well as other prominent journals.

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[poughkeepsieblue]

I love how John and crew just let their guest talk, for over half of the episode.
I am here for your amazing guests, their stories, and the good questions John asks.
Good show.

[_morla_]

For anyone interested, the youtuber/clock maker Clickspring has an amazing series where he recreates a working model from scratch while also going into its history, recent discoveries, possible ways it was created at such precision at the time, and iirc made some discoveries himself that ended up in a peer reviewed study. Pretty fascinating stuff, and extremely satisfying videos! Great interview as ever, keep up the good work John!

[BriarLeaf]

I could listen to this man talk about this for days. Really fascinating subject and a really wonderful orator. Thanks for letting the man speak, John, you really are a top, top notch interviewer.

[rptaraporevala]

Amazing! So, I have a few questions and thoughts:
1. How the beep did they "machine" or fashion the gears?
2. How did they write letters that were 1.6 to 2 mm high?
3. Did they have magnifying devices to see these letters while writing?
4. How did they read them? much better eyesight than mine or - again, magnifying devices?
5. There was a mention of a 1 mm offset between centers of spindles to get to the last cycle of the moon as described in the video. How do you manage such critical tolerances in a manufacturing process that predates current robust mechanical/automated manufacturing?
6. So, you manufactured one of the sixty odd gears (I hope my memory serves me right) - how did they verify that the gear was to spec?
7. Specification! How did they specify and draw out the device for the manufacturing team to follow - let alone design it!
8. How many discards did they have before they got a correctly working piece?
9. So, who did the QA on the device and when? One of the cycles was 19 years! So did they wait for that period (or an average of 9.5 years) to test that functionality?

One can go on... So many questions and thoughts.

Thank you for this detailed description.

[TheAmericanAmerican]

The guest's voice is absolutely fantastic! It's like listening to a wise grandfather telling you an ancient epic! 😁

[BloodyBobJr]

Antikythera Mechanism I think is one of the greatest discoveries in archeology maybe ever. Only certain events could be higher, like the discovery of Tutankhamen tomb or finding the burial complex of the 1st Emperor of China or the ancient structure of Göbekli Tepe. But for me this Mechanism blows me away.. just the questions it brings up intrigue me too no end.

Who made it? How many were around in ancient times. How old is this device really, could it be a design 100's or even 1000 years older than its determined age. Was this some one off Genius creation by some master craftsman or was this a ancient design passed on through the ages. This level of technology is 1000's of years ahead of established understanding.. I wish it was talked about more. Some experts seem to dismiss it, cause we never found any other devices like it or even similar kinds of evidence. The fact it's only one of it's kind ever found is absolutely insane.

It generates so many questions in my mind, it basically rewrites how we envision people of those ancient times. How many other inventions of that time have we never seen?

[JonnoPlays]

I watched the full Stanford presentation on this device and it was absolutely incredible. Very technical and difficult to understand, but still very much worth the watch. YouTube does a good job of recommending the video so you should be able to find it.

[ryanb]

The Scientists and Engineers that built this device 2200 years ago were incredible, and they don't get enough respect.

[baarbacoa]

I saw it when even through the National Archeological Museum. I called my wife over and said "look it's the Antikythera mechanism!" She said, "Uh, Ok...." But to her credit, she pretended to be excited after she saw I was hyped up about seeing it.😂😂

[mikedjames]

Some time in the 1990s I was on holiday near Athens. I went to visit the NAM in Athens and find the Mechanism before the Mechanism had been decoded. I think IBM had taken a look at it and done some X-Rays but it was displayed in a corner surrounded by many vases which seemed to be presented as more important than something with gears in it.. I am glad I have seen it for real.

[kickpublishing]

A mechanism like that did not exist in isolation but was the result of a whole school of science and engineering. Just shows how partial our knowledge of history is

[TheAmericanAmerican]

Amazing! Incredible! Outstanding episode John!
As someone who used to believe a decade ago that ancient alien made this device and gave it to ancient humans, listening to an actual expert explain his discoveries about this Incredible HUMAN-MADE device almost brought tears to my eyes...
We humans are unbelievably clever given enough time and resources! We built our current global civilization on the shoulders of giants and we have to make sure we can be the next giants for our descendants to stand on!

[dennisdrayna]

A remarkable explanation of the history and function of what is probably the most important object we have from the ancient world. Dr. Freeth, who made many of the crucial discoveries about this object, gives simple, user-friendly explanations. I highly recommend his two papers in Nature, which are easy for non-scientists to understand, and which convey the intellectual excitement that surrounded this work. Best of all, Dr. Freeth credits the many contributions made by others in this amazing story. The best 53 minutes I've spent in a long time.

[babybluesky]

oh well there's tonights video sorted... Just spent 2 hours listening to a breakdown of how they figured this out - this will be a great follow on, thank you GMD - been watching for years

[jackesioto]

The Antikythera mechanism was WAY ahead of its time no matter how you look at it! Gears are generally thought to have been invented during the medieval period, but here we have a set of gears from Antiquity!

[TheSouthernorycle]

Really blows my mind that this channel doesn’t have several million subscribers. Love your content John!

[txrwauy]

This was another incredible episode. I learned so much, having known very little about this topic before. I am in awe of the craftsmanship, design work and attention to scientific detail that the Greeks put into this mechanism. I don't need people telling me that aliens built the pyramids etc - our ancestors were capable of incredible feats of engineering all on their own by putting in a lot of thought and hard, skilled work. Dr Freeth spoke very well and is obviously passionate about his subject.

[alexherbert]

Aliens, space tech, dinosaurs and ancient humanity ....this podcast reads my fantasies. Cheers John. Awesome.

[ivan-Croatian]

I love these videos to watch before sleep. I'm thinking about what's being said until my brain slowly switching to dream, and those dreams are trippy as hell. And I basically must watch one video 3-4 times until I get to the end of it 😄

[exoexpansion]

Î am fascinated by this and the fact that the ancient Greeks built such a machine. It only proves that my old obsession with ancient Greece is not that crazy.