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Why does nobody talk about how the Antikythera mechanism might just be a teaching tool, not a computer?
I was at a dive bar in Baltimore last Friday and this guy who teaches astronomy at a community college starts telling me the Antikythera mechanism is proof ancient Greeks had computers. I almost choked on my beer. Here is my issue with that whole idea. Calling it a computer makes people picture something way more advanced than what was actually found. It was a bronze gear box about the size of a shoebox that showed where the sun and moon were. That is it. My take is it was a fancy teaching prop for rich kids, not some lost tech. Think about it. If the Greeks had real computers in 100 BC, where are the other 50 of them? You do not invent something that wild and then just forget how to make it for 1,500 years. It was a one off toy for a wealthy patron, probably made by one guy who took his method to the grave. Sometimes a cool gear box is just a cool gear box. Anybody got a real argument against this or am I missing something obvious?
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jessej2329d ago
Same thing happens with those "ancient battery" pots in Iraq, just one weird find and people lose their minds lol.
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