Researchers at UCL have solved a major piece of the puzzle that makes up the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism, a hand-powered mechanical device that was used to predict astronomical events.
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12 March 2021 Researchers at UCL have solved a major piece of the puzzle that makes up the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism, a hand-powered mechanical device that was used to predict astronomical events.
Known to many as the world’s first analogue computer, the Antikythera Mechanism is the most complex piece of engineering to have survived from the ancient world. The 2,000-year-old device was used to predict the positions of the Sun, Moon and the planets as well as lunar and solar eclipses.
Published in
Scientific Reports, the paper from the multidisciplinary UCL Antikythera Research Team reveals a new display of the ancient Greek order of the Universe (Cosmos), within a complex gearing system at the front of the Mechanism.
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For more than 100 years, scientists have deliberated the mystery behind the ancient Antikythera mechanism, a 2,000 year old Greek astronomical calculator with the ability to exhibit the movement of the universe, including five known planets and predict the phases of the moon and the solar and lunar eclipses.
Currently only a third of the device often defined as the world’s first analogue computer remains in a collection of 82 battered fragments, including 30 corroded bronze gearwheels, further baffling scholars.
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Try refreshing your browser. Scientists may have the answer to the ancient mystery of the Antikythera mechanism, after more than a century Back to video