The Antikythera Mechanism: An Astonishing Invention from Ancient Greece | The 1st Analogue Computer

In Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, they embark on a quest for the missing pieces of the Antikythera Mechanism. They also say it was built by Archimedes during the time of the Battle of Syracuse around 212 BCE, and that it has powers to travel through time. Reality? I think not!

This is the real story of the Antikythera Mechanism. The first underwater archaeological investigation, the oldest known analogue computer and the only scientific instrument that has survived from the Hellenistic era.

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Antikythera Mechanism, the Oldest Computer and Mechanical Cosmos 2nd century BC by Xenophon Moussas. School of Physics and Astronomy University of Birmingham 2014

A portable cosmos, Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World, Alexander Jones, Oxford University Press 2017

Improved X-ray computed tomography reconstruction of the largest fragment of the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient Greek astronomical calculator

Gears from the Greeks : the Antikythera mechanism : a calendar computer from ca. 80 B.C., Derek de Solla Price., 1975

The Antikythera shipwreck : the ship, the treasures, the mechanism : National Archaeological Museum, April 2012-April 2013 / editors, Nikolaos Kaltsas, Elena Vlachogianni, Polyxeni Bouyia.

Decoding an Ancient Computer: Greek Technology Tracked the Heavens

Efstathiou, K., & Efstathiou, M. (2018). Celestial Gearbox. Mechanical Engineering, 140(09), 31. doi:10.1115/1.2018-sep1

Decoding the Antikythera Mechanism: Investigation of an Ancient
Astronomical Calculator by T. Freeth, Y. Bitsakis, X. Moussas, et al. Nature, Volume 444, Issue 7119, pp. 587-591 (2006).

The Antikythera mechanism was an astronomical calculating machine, where you can set a date via the calendars, and it will then show you where all the planets would be, the orbit and phases of the moon, and the eclipse cycle. When the mechanism was first identified, the initial belief was that it was used for navigation, especially because it was found on a ship. Another theory is that the device was made for demonstrative or teaching purposes, not for astronomers who would have needed a much more precise machine to calculate fractions of days and more minute occurrences such as the varying lengths of days and nights.

The very existence of the Antikythera Mechanism proves that the ancient Greeks had a deeper understanding and mastery of astronomy than we could have possibly imagined. A knowledge that rivalled science that was being conducted in the 16th century Even scholars who spent their lives studying it have stated that it’s a level of technology that in their mind, couldn’t have existed. But yet, here it is, and verified to have been made within the Hellenistic age.

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#underwaterarchaeology #Archaeology #ancientgreece #ancienthistory #antikytheramechanism

[bjh]

It's always stumped me how there has only been one of these amazing machines found in the entire world, so it's great to learn that these types were known & documented to be around. Stay dirty, Raven. Love your channel ❤️

[PatJamesRicketts]

Great video:) Clickspring has a great series recreating the mechanism for anyone looking to dive deeper!

[douglasboyle]

I've always been fascinated by the Antikythera Mechanism and I watch all sorts of attempts at modern recreations of it using modern tools and CAD and it still takes loads of expertise and hundreds and hundreds of hours so I cannot even fathom the amount of time and energy (physical and mental) that went into the original. It truly is a wonder to behold.

[Lady_Morgana_HighPriestress]

Probably the most fascinating device in greek archaeology for me, thanks for the presentation !

[pandakicker]

The genius of the Greeks will never cease to amaze me! Ζήτω η Ελλάδα!

[Louis--]

Great video, I hadn't heard or thought much of the audience, very interesting.

[gluuuuue]

This thing is almost unbelievably impressive when you consider there are horological pieces that cost tens of thousands of dollars that implement just a few of the most basic functions of the Mechanism. (Check out the Astrolabium Galileo Galilei by Ulysse Nardin.)

The engineering alone is difficult to comprehend. Like, we know Euclid was preoccupied with the ability to construct regular n-gons (polygons), which was probably extremely useful if you wanted to mark and cut gears with exactly n teeth, right? But the main gear has 223 teeth, and 223 isn't one of the constructible values of n!

My only nitpick as a computer scientist is that the Antikythera, like a wristwatch, probably shouldn't be considered a "computer". At least, it's no more a computer than any calendar would be, although this is probably one of the most impressively detailed calendars ever conceived, let alone actually built, since each Cycle required both the prior astronomical knowledge as well as the engineering to build an additional gear train to track it. Yes, it has gears and gear trains, but like in a clock, those only mark "every x ticks = a month".

And it isn't analog, since the logic of its tracking goes by days as its smallest unit, which is discrete and thus digital. (But I suppose people always associate the digital vs. analog distinction with mechanical vs. electronics, which it isn't. So a differential analyzer is an analog computer, whereas Charles Babbage's Difference and Analytical Engines are digital computers, both of which are mechanical.)


Btw, Allan Bromley was also famous for poring through years of Babbage's drawings and notes, and understanding and explaining how his Difference and Analytical Engines work!

[ionfyr]

Thank you, Raven. I have been fascinated by the Antikythera Mechanism (not to be confused by the Antikythera Mech--a clockwork giant robot) for years. Not being a patreon supporter yet, I can only suggest that you do a more in depth episode about it. As for the statement: "the greeks came so close to inventing clockwork..." well, they actually did invent it.

Still awesome. Also love the nose ring.

[robertclarke]

Love your work Raven! I am guessing if the Time Travel feature worked we could ask Archimedes to demo it for us himself 🤣

[bobsebbo]

Good one! thanks. Still looking forward to your next "wonders of the ancient world" series..

[Davlavi]

Learning more about this find is so exciting for so many reasons.

[nbsrbyy]

An excellent lecture. You have quite a knack for bringing history to life.

Fascinating.

[spankflaps]

I used to build stuff like that out of Meccano, so it was pretty cool when I realised the Greeks were doing the same thing 2200 years ago.

[DwayneShaw]

As you mention, the concept of gears has been around for at least 5000 years. And making gears is a relatively simple process that any shop apprentice could easily manage (all you need is a disc with the ratio laid out, and a file). The genius is in the design itself, rather than the manufacture (though it is exceptional craftsmanship) - which we can see examples of in the history of automata. It took a lot of knowledge to design all the features and calculate the ratios - but it was an age of great thought and discovery, an earlier Renaissance or Enlightenment, where the mechanism doesn't seem so mysteriously out of place to me.

[prettypic]

What an awesome idea for alt history novel...

[papertoyss]

Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
_"In the sense of this last mysterious question we must now state how the influence of Socrates has spread out over later worlds, right up to this moment and, indeed, into all future ages, like a shadow in the evening sun constantly growing larger, how that influence always makes necessary the re-creation of art —I mean art in its most profound and widest metaphysical sense — and through its own immortality guarantees the immortality of art._

_Before we could recognize this fact, before we convincingly established the innermost dependence of every art on the Greeks, from Homer right up to Socrates, we had to treat these Greeks as the Athenians treated Socrates. Almost every era and cultural stage has at some point sought in an profoundly ill-tempered frame of mind to free itself of the Greeks, because in comparison with the Greeks, all their own achievements, apparently fully original and admired in all sincerity, suddenly appeared to lose their colour and life and shrivelled to unsuccessful copies, in fact, to caricatures. And so a heartfelt inner anger always keeps breaking out again against that arrogant little nation which dared to designate for all time everything that was not produced in its own country as “barbaric.” Who were those Greeks, people asked themselves, who, although they had achieved only an ephemeral historical glitter, only ridiculously restricted institutions, only an ambiguous competence in morality, who could even be identified with hateful vices, yet who had nevertheless laid a claim to a dignity and a pre-eminent place among peoples, appropriate to a genius among the masses? Unfortunately people were not lucky enough to find the cup of hemlock which could easily do away with such a being, for all the poisons which envy, slander, and inner rage created were insufficient to destroy that self-satisfied magnificence. Hence, confronted by the Greeks, people have been ashamed and afraid, unless an individual values the truth above everything else and dares to propose this truth: the notion that the Greeks, as the charioteers of our culture and every other one, hold the reins, but that almost always the wagon and horses are inferior material and do not match the glory of their drivers, who then consider it amusing to whip such a team into the abyss, over which they themselves jump with the leap of Achilles."_

[classicslover]

This was SO VERY fun! And Raven...I LOVE the sound your eyelid makes after you say "Stay dirty my friends!" Wait! If those gears needed lubrication...do you think?(whispers) Banana Oil? No? Fine. And how is your book going? What people fail to understand about us writers is that we are writing even if it just looks like we're staring out a window. = ) Did I mention that the man who wrote the foreward to my book just got The Order of Canada last week?

[HistoryandHeadlines]

I have been watching the Young Indiana Jones films and the theatrical films to build up towards watching the upcoming film!

[jerrycratsenberg]

Wow! Great lecture! You are wonderful! I am curious about the gear with 233 teeth. 233 is a prime number, making it it nearly impossible to calculate and cut with the tools and materials avail
able at the time.

[kjylsnz]

What are the digging tools used by the Thamudis, the Danites, and the Nabataeans in excavating the mountains in Mada’in Saleh, the caves of Shu’ayb and Petra?
Is a secret I did not hear her answer?
At a time when there was no advanced drilling equipment at that time