The Two Thousand Year Old Computer

[VTRDark]

The Two Thousand Year Old Computer

This should be of particular interest to Virt as he's studying the ancient Greeks.

I'm personally not sure if it can be technically called a computer as the BBC has done, as it does not generate semaphore, Morse code (dots and dashes) or the modern equivalent off a combination of O's and 1's. But here it is anyway and very interesting indeed.

In 1901, a group of divers excavating an ancient Roman shipwreck near the island of Antikythera, off the southern coast of Greece, found a mysterious object - a lump of calcified stone that contained within it several gearwheels welded together after years under the sea. The 2,000-year-old object, no bigger than a modern laptop, is now regarded as the world's oldest computer, devised to predict solar eclipses and, according to recent findings, calculate the timing of the ancient Olympics. Following the efforts of an international team of scientists, the mysteries of the Antikythera Mechanism are uncovered, revealing surprising and awe-inspiring details of the object that continues to mystify.

The film can be viewed on BBC iPlayer until Feb 19
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... _Computer/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/ ... -astronomy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

Enjoy

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[Wicky]

...a lump of calcified stone

MS Windows hasn't changed much then....

[VTRDark]

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[Virt]

Very interesting, although it is not a wide belief that the ancient Olympics were done on the same basis that we do them now. So I think that idea has been ruled out As far as I'm aware the ancient Olympics were done similar to the Roman's Funeral Games (They had to steal that tradition from somewhere.. And according to Virgil, the Romans descended from the Trojans who have similar lineage to the Achaeans) or in honour of new kings. I may have to give that a watch though, but not tonight! CompSci coursework is due in tomorrow

[Wicky]

Fascinating how their Astronomy and gearing tech were so far advanced, and then effectively lost to the West till the Arabs provided a backup which was picked up again in the Renaissance. Which allowed accurate chronometers to be made allowing the world to be explored, the New World discovered and Steve Jobs (half-Arab on his Dad's side) to found Apple to make the computer I'm typing on...

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

Carl Sagan

The road to uncovering a wartime Colossus

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21384672

[BigVeeGrin]

going to take a trip to Bletchley Park - fascinating story and only 5 miles away

[Stratman]

The word "computer" actually appears in the Middle Ages and was the occupational name for a person whi used to compute figures, just like Fletcher was an arrow maker, etc.

[VTRDark]

The word "computer" actually appears in the Middle Ages

Now there's another very interesting subject. Language. I thought it was from latin, but then I guess that had to be taken from somewhere as language progresses from one meaning into another. Innit LOL That's when it starts to go a bit off course I think, when slang turns into something that eventually goes in the dictionary. I guess as long as we all understand what each person means it's OK.

Have a look at some of the old words in the Captcha's on some sites. Re-captcha to be specific.
http://www.google.com/recaptcha/captcha They scan old books to try and preserve the language we have lost over the years.

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[Stratman]

I'm fascinated by languages now and wish I had done Latin all those years ago. I've been studying French for the last few years and am now also doing Spanish with some Italian and a few bits of Dutch for comparison. Most of our body parts we name after the Dutch/German/Saxon root, like nik and knie, most meat we use the French derivation - beef for boeuf etc. and words that don't look anything like their equivalent in either set often come from Old Norse - i.e. the Vikings.

Added into the mix are words from all over the old Empire - Indian words like bungalow, verandah, snooker etc.

I can bore for England on the subject!

[Virt]

That does make sense Stratman, the amount of times we used to get invaded by foreign countries and all.. It's only natural that we adapt to their languages and culture.. Don't ever recall being invaded by Germany in History lessons though, at least not succesfully

[Stratman]

That does make sense Stratman, the amount of times we used to get invaded by foreign countries and all.. It's only natural that we adapt to their languages and culture.. Don't ever recall being invaded by Germany in History lessons though, at least not succesfully

Try Geography instead and look where Saxony was - then ponder on "Anglo-Saxon" and it may be clearer

[Virt]

Try Geography instead and look where Saxony was - then ponder on "Anglo-Saxon" and it may be clearer

Ooh yah.. My bad

[Wicky]

Tell that to the Channel Islanders > Good book on what they went through

When the Germans arrived on the Channel Islands after the defeat of France in the summer of 1940, they and the islanders agreed that it would be a 'Model Occupation'. But as the war dragged on and Britain appeared to abandon the islands to their fate, so features of Nazi occupation already widespread throughout Europe emerged. There were love affairs between island women and German soldiers, betrayals and black marketeering, individual acts of resistance, feats of courage and endurance. Every islander was faced with uncomfortable choices: where did patriotism end and self-preservation begin? What moral obligation did they have to the thousands of emaciated and ill-treated slave labourers the Nazi's brought among them to build an impregnable ring of defences around the islands?

Don't ever recall being invaded by Germany in History lessons though, at least not succesfully

[firestorm996]

Hublot produced a one-off working version of the antikythera, but sized down to become a wristwatch. Incredible engineering..

http://www.gizmag.com/hublot-antikyther ... tch/20517/

[VTRDark]

Wow, that is absolutely amazing. Just imagine how finicky it is to make and put something like that together.

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