The Antikythera Mechanism
world-archaeology.com
world-archaeology.com
While he does use some modern tools and techniques, he also spends time doing things the same way the craftsmen of the time did them.
The ancients weren't stupid or primitive people. They were quite capable of quite subtle and ingenious engineering, and it is a shame that much of that has been lost over time.
It probably was. Mind you the craftsman probably made more than one of that type of thing, but each would have been to order for the customer, and designed to the needs and budget of the customer. Want a different calendar - no problem at all. Want to skip the phases of the moon - that will save you some money. Want to add something else - just a bit more cash.
This was made by a master craftsman, but in there wouldn't have been a large number of people who could afford such a thing. It is possible the craftsman was paid to never made another so the buyer can show off something unique.
It's possible that Facebook will ring me today to make me VP of R&D and pay me $5m a year. But I have no reason to believe that is so, and nor do you, and nor does anyone about the craftsman who made the Antikythera Mechanism! There is no reason to believe that the thing was customized from a menu of functionality - it's just as likely that a machine like this was the tool of a navigator or sea captain and one of a hand made, very expensive, but standard type. Rather like a marine chronometer would have been in the 16th Century. I could argue that it's much more likely because we found the thing on a ship and so on - but there is just no evidence either way really.
On the other hand we do have references to similar machines, autonoma and so on, in ancient sources. So it certainly wasn't completely unique. The interesting thing to me is that it doesn't seem that this was translated into clock making.
How many times has humanity thrown away wonderful knowledge due to a violent mob emotionally manipulated by those seeking power?
This device originated some time in the second or first century BC, half a millennium before the ascendancy of Christianity, so we can't blame the lack of evidence of any successor devices during that period on religion.
The next time we see similarly sophisticated devices in Europe is the early 14th century, in the form of astronomical clocks such as those made by Richard of Wallingford in the 1330s. That's at the height of the ascendency of the Catholic church, and several hundred years before the reformation got under way.
I haven’t read the paper under current discussion yet. I wonder how it relates to Budiselic & al.’s work. For anyone curious, the new paper is https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-84310-w (as far as I can tell, not linked by the posted article)
He was one of Michael Wright's collaborators and wrote a lot about it .. unfortunately he died in 2002, cutting short his research.
http://fsoso.free.fr/antikythera/DOCS/TheAntikytheraMechanis...
https://researchdata.edu.au/allan-bromely-collection/935576
(maybe it doesn't help that researchdata misspells his name!)
* 200 AD: the industrial revolution.
* 300 AD: cars, the radio.
* 350 AD: the first electronic, programmable computer.
* 370 AD: live TV, first human steps on the moon.
* 380 AD: the internet, satellite communication.
* 400 AD: smartphones, laptops, social media.
* 450 AD: (good) immersive VR, CBDCs, a GPT type of AI wins a Nobel prize, space tourism.
* 500 AD: nuclear fusion, personal quantum computers, humanoid robots, simulation VR a la The Matrix.
* 2021 AD: we’ve probably solved the Fermi Paradox — humanity died out long ago.
I'm pretty sure they did, at least the ones that were aware of it- otherwise, why would they make it?
>> * 200 AD: the industrial revolution.
>> * 300 AD: cars, the radio.
>> etc.
Yes, but why? Why would the ancients want to start the industrial revolution in their time, and what tells us that cars and the radio would inevitably follow suit? Maybe the fact that they didn't start an industrial revolution should tell us that their goals did not align with the goals of the era of the industrial revolution.
As to technological discoveries taking a predetermined path, one after the other, exactly in the order in which they happened in our times, there's no reason to assume this. How do we know what obvious things we haven't invented yet that are well within our technological capabilities but we simply haven't thought of? Everything is pretty obvious with hindsight and with enough obviousness everything looks inevitable, but in reality nothing is.
Here's my favourite example: the Australian aborigines invented the airfoil many millennia befor the Wright brothers. They could have at least made gliders to swoop down upon prey from above. They never did. Why?
Because who knows how ancient people thought? All we know is that they thought not exactly as we do, and so they did things different than us. There's every reason to suspect that the ancients would have done things differently: they did.
Edit: Oh. Wait. Was that a "whoosh" sound far above my head?
It was more likely inspired by the pythagorian numerical model of the universe. Who is to say that Pythagoras was wrong? For example, all of modern chemistry is explainable in those terms.