The News:
Ancient computer had "unexpected degree of sophistication"
By John Noble Wilford
The New York Times
Article Last Updated:11/29/2006 09:21:17 PM MST
A computer in antiquity would seem to be an anachronism, like Athena ordering takeout on her cellphone. But a century ago, pieces of a strange mechanism with bronze gears and dials were recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of Greece. Historians of science concluded that this was an instrument that calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly phases of the moon and planetary motions, in the second century B.C. The Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes called the world's first computer, has now been examined with the latest in high- resolution imaging systems and three-dimensional X-ray tomography. A team of British, Greek and U.S. researchers was able to decipher many inscriptions and reconstruct the gear functions, revealing, they said, "an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period." The researchers, led by mathematician Tony Freeth and astronomer Mike Edmunds, both of the University of Cardiff in Wales, are reporting the results of their study in today's issue of the journal Nature.
The Research:
Read the research article behind this story in the journal NATURE.
