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Ichingcarpenter

(36,988 posts)
Fri Nov 28, 2014, 05:24 AM Nov 2014

Antikythera Mechanism older than thought

Antikythera Mechanism older than thought

Archaeologists and historians have long debated where the device was built, and by whom. Given its sophistication, some experts believe it must have been influenced, at least, by one of a small pantheon of legendary Greek scientists —
perhaps Archimedes, Hipparchus or Posidonius.

Its purpose has been debated, too. It has been described as, among other things, an eclipse predictor, an astrological forecasting system and an astronomical teaching device.

Now a new analysis of the dial used to predict eclipses, which is set on the back of the mechanism, provides yet another clue to one of history’s most intriguing puzzles. Christián C. Carman, a science historian at the National University of Quilmes in Argentina, and James Evans, a physicist at the University of Puget Sound in Washington, suggest that the calendar of the mysterious device began in 205 B.C., just seven years after Archimedes died.

Read more at: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.dk/2014/11/antikythera-mechanism-older-than-thought.html#.VHeAkphFzOY.reddit



cross posted in anthropology

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Antikythera Mechanism older than thought (Original Post) Ichingcarpenter Nov 2014 OP
K&R DeSwiss Nov 2014 #1
Archimedes is credited for the first planetarium Ichingcarpenter Nov 2014 #3
Thanks! trusty elf Nov 2014 #2
K&R nenagh Nov 2014 #4
 

DeSwiss

(27,137 posts)
1. K&R
Fri Nov 28, 2014, 07:29 AM
Nov 2014

[center]Unprecedented exploration of Antikythera wreck yields new treasures


A Greek and international team of divers and archaeologists have used a new high-tech exosuit to reach deep waters in which the world-renowned Antikythera wreck.

[/center]

link

Ichingcarpenter

(36,988 posts)
3. Archimedes is credited for the first planetarium
Fri Nov 28, 2014, 08:21 AM
Nov 2014

In the first century BC Cicero wrote of two "spheres" built by Archimedes that Marcellus, the Roman consul who conquered Syracuse in 212 BC, looted from Syracuse and brought to Rome. One was a solid sphere on which were engraved or painted the stars and constellations, which Marcellus placed in the Temple of Virtue. Such celestial globes predate Archimedes by several hundred years and Cicero credits the famed geometers Thales and Eudoxos with first constructing them. The second sphere, which Marcellus kept for himself, was much more ingenious and original. It was a planetarium: a mechanical model which shows the motions of the sun, moon, and planets as viewed from the earth. Cicero writes that Archimedes must have been "endowed with greater genius that one would imagine it possible for a human being to possess" to be able to build such an unprecedented device.

Many other ancient writers also refer to Archimedes' planetarium in prose and in verse. Several viewed it as proof that the cosmos must have had a divine creator: for just as Archimedes' planetarium required a creator, so then must the cosmos itself have required a creator. Cicero reverses the argument to contend that since the cosmos had a divine creator, so then must Archimedes be divine to be able to imitate its motions.

http://www.math.nyu.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Sphere/SphereIntro.html

My take is that out of all the people in those ancient times that we know of Archimedes is the one genius that could have made such a device with his mechanical, mathematical, engineering , and conceptual genius who could have built this device.

I think he was one of the greatest genius of all times,let alone his time. I put him in the top three geniuses of all times.

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