BOSTON, MA – Xenophon Moussas, Professor of Astrophysics, Astronomy, and Mechanics at the University of Athens, brought the famous Antikythera Mechanism to Boston, MA. Several talks and an exhibition were organized at Stonehill College, Center of Astrophysics Harvard and Tufts University.
The oldest known computer made in Greece sometime between 150 to 100 BC came to Boston to the beautiful Stonehill campus, where a very interesting exhibition was on display that included a bronze model of the mechanism made by Dionysios Kriaris. The exhibition was designed by Prof. Moussas and prepared by Stonehill. Moussasdelivered an impressive lecture, accompanied by slides at the Maliotis Cultural Center in Brookline.
Moussas told TNH that “the Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known computer that in fact was originally called tablet – pinakidion in Greek, which means little table. It is a relatively accurate and realistic clockwork Cosmos, a Planetarium, most probably an astronomical clock. It is an instrument probably made during the second half of the 2nd century BC, somewhere in the Greek World.”
He explained that “it works with carefully designed bronze gears that perform the appropriate mathematical operations to predict astronomical phenomena, like the position of the sun and the moon in the sky, the age (phase) of the moon, with an ingenious method that is a good approximation of Kepler’s second law using an equivalent of a two-term Fourier series and it probably gives the position of the planets using the same mathematical method but with a different combination of gears, what we call planetary gears. It predicts solar and lunar eclipses. We have discovered a set of gears that I interpret as planetary gear that predicts the motion and position of planet Jupiter using an equivalent of Fourier series with two terms.”
To the question if the mechanism is actually a clock with continuous motion, he said “the answer is based on Ancient Greek texts that describe automata and locks and I will present the case that it moves with a mechanism of weight and counter weights, like to clock of Archimedes, regulated by a float the is in a prismatic container of water where the level increases with constant rate.”
Moussas added that “The Antikythera Mechanism is the epitome of Greek Philosophy, the Natural Philosophy of the Greek philosophers mainly the natural philosophers, the Ionian philosophers, the Pythagoreans. To imagine that you can predict natural phenomena, to conceive the construction of such a machine, a computer, an automaton, that reproduces the movements of celestial bodies, predicts the phases of the moon, the eclipses, it is required for a civilization to have: a) the notion of determinism, b) the laws of nature, c) the laws of nature expressed with precision only with appropriate mathematics, d) natural phenomena understood and interpreted with the laws of physics, and e) sometimes predicted by the laws of nature.”
He added that “to construct such a mechanism a civilization has to develop what is now called modeling in science, to conceive, develop and put in operation the doctrine of the Pythagorean philosophy that everything is properly described with mathematics that the laws of physics can be expressed.The mechanism is much more advanced than any other ancient device, like astrolabes, the astronomical clocks that appeared in Western Europe for the first time around the 14th century.”
Today, he said, the mechanism is exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, “where many other treasures found in an ancient shipwreck that sunk in the 1st century BC near the little Greek island of Antikythera, between Peloponnese and Crete, in a spot that was in the sea route between mainland Greece and Asia Minor, the Aegean Sea in general, and Italy, Rome most probably was the destination of the huge ship full of treasures.
The gears have been designed to perform appropriate mathematical operations to predict all the then known astronomical phenomena. It really is realistic clockwork Cosmos, with the Moon following Kepler’s second law. The mechanism probably was very luxurious in appearance, with ornaments like a Rococo clock, because the taste of that era was similar. The mechanism is the dream of any astronomer of that time. or even of today.
“The study of the mechanism permits much better understanding of the way humans use science in antiquity and one of our conclusions is that the level of mathematics, mechanics, and astronomy is much higher than estimated so far by the global scientific community, even by specialists.
The mechanism predicts solar and lunar eclipses and shows the result on two dials one spiral dial that lasts a Saros cycle of 18years, 11 days and 8 hours and an Exeligmos cycle of 54 years and a month. The phase of the moon and the month in a Greek calendar that lasts 19 years which is Meton’s cycle, calendar the we use today for Easter determination.”
The post The Antikythera Mechanism Βrought to Boston appeared first on The National Herald.