Joel Orr's World

Unique Marvel of Ancient Greek Technology Gives Up New Secrets
Unmatched in complexity for 1,000 years, the device counted down the months until eclipses and might once have shown the positions of the planets.

GREEK TECH: A new study of a Greek calendar calculator dating to the first century B.C. reveals how the so-called Antikythera mechanism would have worked.
The most sophisticated mechanical device of ancient Greece may finally be giving up its secrets. Researchers have long known the so-called Antikythera mechanism was a calendar of sorts that represented the positions of the sun and moon using a series of gears. In its complexity it outshined all other objects for a thousand years following its creation sometime around the second century B.C. Now an international consortium of researchers has probed the machine's corroded fragments with sophisticated x-ray and light imaging tools to uncover the true sophistication of this geared wonder.

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Unique Marvel of Ancient Greek Technology Gives Up New Secrets -- Unmatched in complexity for 1,000 years, the device counted down the months until eclipses and might once have shown the positions of the planets..