2,100-Year-Old Antikythera Device Recreated In Working Form

coondoggie writes "A new working model of the mysterious 2,100-year-old astronomical calculator, dubbed the Antikythera Device, has been unveiled, incorporating the most recent discoveries announced two years ago by an international team of researchers. The new model was demonstrated by its creator, former museum curator Michael Wright, who had created an earlier model based on decades of study."

Something of note

[Anonymous Coward]

Kythera was the name of the island it was found near, thus anti-kythera means it was found off the coast of the island.

It's what we call it, we have no idea what they would have called it.

Re:Failed Order

[CarpetShark]

That sounds a lot like my experience ordering from Dell actually. I'll never forget that "world shortage of glass" line they gave me as an excuse for my monitors being delayed. They were flatpanels.

Re:It's sad, not amazing

[tick-tock-atona]

Actually, much Greek and Roman knowledge was retained and built upon by the Islamic Empire during the Islamic Golden Age [wikipedia.org], from the 8th to the 16th century.

Re:It's sad, not amazing

[mangu]

in the so called middle ages

They were first called so in no derogative sense, "middle" here means between antiquity and the newest ages. The term "Middle Ages" got such a negative connotation exactly because of that extreme lack of progress that only an Anonymous Coward could possibly deny.

Europe went into the dark ages barely able to smelt iron, and come out of it as a world beating civilisation[SIC] able to project its power across the globe

Strictly speaking, no one in the world was able to cast iron before the 15th century. But that doesn't mean they couldn't make useful objects of steel and iron. You don't need to completely melt the metal, there are other ways to work it.

There was more 'progress' during that 1000 years than during the entirety of the Roman Empire.

BULLSHIT. The Middle Ages in Europe was a period of complete savagery. They couldn't even take a bath, the great aqueducts built by the Romans lay in ruins, to the point that a disease carried by fleas [wikipedia.org] wiped out a half of the European population.

Re:RELIGON KILLS THE MOST PEOPLE

[Pantero Blanco]

Directly and indirectly, religon has been responsible for more people dying than any other cause EVER.

I see this often, but it's just plain wrong.

Secular leaders ushering in various forms of extreme socialism managed to surpass it in a single century, and general nationalism was far ahead of it anyway.

It was true 5000 years ago. And it's still true today.

Religion was the top killer 5000 years ago? I'd love to see your sources for that.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Why so down?

[ljgshkg]

Actually, slavery already stopped long before 500BC in China. At that time, China has already gone through a few hundred years of war. The need of talents in all these countries and the fight between royal families and nobilities brought warriors/heros, philosophers, strategists, and scholars etc. into highest positions of governments, which will very soon end the era of feudalism in the "country", which later form a periodic country wide examination to select all levels of government officers.

Well, it's actually not feudalism, but somewhat in between feudalism and a union of Chinese countires, as warlords were already fighting as if the "middle kingdom" (the "leading country" of the "union") didn't exist.