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Who built the "super astronomical computer" in B.C.?

Super astronomical computer in B.C.

By Carlo PhilPublished 2 years ago 2 min read
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Antikythera machines

In 1901, Greek divers recovering the wreckage of an ancient underwater vessel discovered a clock-shaped device more than 2,100 years old. But more than 100 years later, with the help of modern advanced technology, scientists uncovered its amazing mystery - the device, called the Antikythera machine, turned out to be a super astronomical computer!

The Antichi machine is handmade and very finely crafted. The instrument consists of copper gears and dials, with 29 gears meshing with each other. After research, archaeologists believe that the instrument was made in 150-100 B.C. and sank with the ship in 42m deep water around 65 B.C. This 2,100-year-old device currently has corroded gears and instrument dials. For decades, experts suspected that the Antichi Sila machine was a kind of astronomical calendar, but how it worked remains unclear.

It wasn't until 2006 that experts used X-ray computed tomography to obtain 3D images of the remaining 29 gears on the instrument and used high-resolution contrast imaging to get a closer look at the small letters etched into the dial's surface, confirming the theory. They believe that the instrument can project a 365-day calendar and is quite clever in including leap days. It could also display the silent winter calendar designed by the Babylonians with a 19-year cycle and predict the attrition every 223 months.

If all this is true, then the Antichi Sila machine's advanced computing power and technological sophistication are unmatched by any other machine in the thousand years since it was built.

According to the theory of Michael Wright, director of mechanical engineering at the Science Museum in London, the machine was built in a school founded by the Stoic philosopher Poseidonio in Rhodes, Greece. For in the 1st century BC, the Greek orator and philosopher Cicero mentioned a similar machine in his essay. He wrote:

"Our friend Poseidonio has recently invented a device that replicates the motion of the sun, the moon, and the five planets with every rotation." Cielo was a student of Poseidonio.

If more evidence can be found to prove that the Greeks made it, then I fear that the history of ancient Greek technology will be completely rewritten. If it was not made by the Greeks, then it must have been made by intelligent beings far more intelligent than the Greeks, with a higher level of craftsmanship and technology. Were they intelligent beings from somewhere else?

One last thing to add to the amazing astronomical calculators of antiquity is that in 1900, divers found a shipwreck at the bottom of a bay. The ship probably sank before the creation of Christianity (i.e., B.C.). The divers found an ancient "computer" on the wreck. After research, the "computer" turned out to be a stellar clock, which people can use to accurately calculate the position of the stars, planets, sun, and moon.

If more evidence can be found to prove that the Greeks made it, then I am afraid that the history of ancient Greek science and technology will be completely rewritten. If the Greeks did not make it, then there must have been intelligent beings far more intelligent than the Greeks, with higher levels of craftsmanship and science and technology, who made it. Could it be that they are intelligent beings from outside the earth?

If this is true, the advanced computing power and technological content of the Antikythera machine were not matched by any other machine for more than a thousand years after it was built.

Science
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About the Creator

Carlo Phil

Science and art are two sides of a coin

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