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A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

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Re: A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

#41

Post by generalizations »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #27
kipchak wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very broadly speaking we tend to now think of history or time as being fairly linear with progress being made while ancients tended to think of history as cyclical and those before them as random. The Antikythera mechanism or the somewhat inexplicable late bronze age collapse and the unidentifiable "sea people" that caused it are good examples to indicate there's some degree of cyclicality, wherein people stumble acr…

Peter Turchin is not a professional historian. He's a hack whose theories have been debunked.

People throw around "debunked" like it's final. In reality, it's just a lazy dismissal without substance.

You want to say he's wrong about something, say what it is and give a reason. Otherwise you're just avoiding actual critical thought.

(Also, I have no idea who Peter Turchin is. I just don't like it when people inflict their defective thinking on others.)

Re: A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

#43

Post by tylermw »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #37
krapp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fall of the Roman empire was essentially a post-apocalyptic event for the West. The economic and political collapse of Rome's satellite states halted the progress of technological and cultural development across subsequent generations. Many ancient Greek classics, such as the works of Aristotle might have been lost forever had they not been saved by Islamic scholars. And don't think it couldn't happen again. We'v…

Modern digital recordings can last for a very long time. And old USB stick dug up in hundreds of years, can be reinterpreted by a future modern civilization. They're kind of all 'saved by Islamic scholars' in that sense?

The data on that USB drive will deteriorate over a couple decades. NAND memory generally isn't an adequate format for archival purposes.

Re: A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

#44

Post by stryan »

krapp wrote: post #28
belval wrote: post #15

What happened to these advanced civilization of the antiquity? We have drawings of highly advanced siege engines yet it seem that after the fall of Rome we all went back to fighting with sticks for a few centuries. Why is that?

The fall of the Roman empire was essentially a post-apocalyptic event for the West. The economic and political collapse of Rome's satellite states halted the progress of technological and cultural development across subsequent generations. Many ancient Greek classics, such as the works of Aristotle might have been lost forever had they not been saved by Islamic scholars. And don't think it couldn't happen again. We'v…

> The fall of the Roman empire was essentially a post-apocalyptic event for the West. The economic and political collapse of Rome's satellite states halted the progress of technological and cultural development across subsequent generations.

"Halted" and "post-apocalyptic" are strong words. The Fall of Rome was a very long and drawn out event, and plenty of technological and cultural development continued after the Fall. r/AskHistorians has many good posts[1] describing why the "Dark Ages" weren't Dark and the various advances made during the post-Rome pre-Rennasiance period.

A lot of people think that technological and philosophical progress stopped after Rome, when really it just isn't talked about. In my opinion, this is probably because it's a lot more exciting to talk about Roman architecture since many buildings still exist today, rather then the three-field system and mould-board plows that kept the population alive.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/235w3l/why_a...

Re: A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

#45

Post by sho_hn »

belval wrote: post #15

What happened to these advanced civilization of the antiquity? We have drawings of highly advanced siege engines yet it seem that after the fall of Rome we all went back to fighting with sticks for a few centuries. Why is that?

In the case of the Antikythera mechanism, it turns out the knowledge and technology weren't entirely lost. There's a fairly well-established throughline now from Babylonian observation-based astronomical tables to Greek philosophical views and mathematics (and craftmanship) to Arabic astrolabes (retaining some of the gear-train tech) and then back to Europe, to the monastic astronomical clocks. Then the escapement was invented and added in, and boom you got modern industrial technology.

There are a lot of loss and bottlenecks along that journey, though. And many notable locations, installations and individuals. The history of instrument-making and how it is intertwined with philosophical and religious views on the skies and the topology of the universe is quite fascinating (e.g. the motivations for observing the sky, being able to produce predictions at all, crafting models, etc).

Re: A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

#46

Post by krapp »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #37
krapp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fall of the Roman empire was essentially a post-apocalyptic event for the West. The economic and political collapse of Rome's satellite states halted the progress of technological and cultural development across subsequent generations. Many ancient Greek classics, such as the works of Aristotle might have been lost forever had they not been saved by Islamic scholars. And don't think it couldn't happen again. We'v…

Modern digital recordings can last for a very long time. And old USB stick dug up in hundreds of years, can be reinterpreted by a future modern civilization. They're kind of all 'saved by Islamic scholars' in that sense?

A future civilization would need to reconstruct a compatible operating system, software and hardware first, then build something with a USB port to put the stick into.

It's not impossible but consider how many ancient human languages we still can't translate, or can only translate due to coincidence (as in the case of the Rosetta Stone with Egyptian hieroglyphics.) Translating digital information in a similar cultural vacuum would be exponentially more difficult. If that stick is encrypted, how does one even know there is information to begin with?

Re: A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

#47

Post by InfiniteRand »

jcrubino wrote: post #11
noisy_boy wrote: post #7

Wonder if there are common origins of Antikhytera and Sanskrit word for cosmos, Antariksha.

Great tip. Archimedes in the Sand Reckoner cites to be solving on a problem from the "Eastern Philosophers". The problem is also in the Vajra Sutra where the numbers of sands in the cosmos is contemplated. Archimedes Father was an astronomer. Great parallel lives material that never maid it into the original. The Antikytheron is written in a Corinthian dialect, from where Archimdes father is said to have come from. M…

The wikipedia article suggests doubt on the Archimedes connection - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

In particular when it says "it was demonstrated in 2017 that the calendar on the Metonic Spiral is indeed of the Corinthian type but cannot be that of Syracuse," although as evidence goes that doesn't sound definitive.

Nevertheless, it is important to remember that Archimedes was part of an active intellectual community and is reported to have written a (now lost) manuscript on the construction of planetarium-style models ("On Sphere-Making"), so whether or not the artifact is directly from Archimedes there might be an intellectual link.

Re: A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

#49

Post by shakezula »

phkahler wrote: post #36
ontekhunhsentuh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowledge is passed on from master to apprentice. Nearly-universal literacy helped to alleviate this issue somewhat, but even today most practical knowledge is passed on by people working together. The result is that even a gap of a single generation is enough for some knowledge to be lost. That's why Roman concrete was forgotten, why we can't build a Saturn V anymore, why you can't just start a chip-fab with enough…

That's why odd gaps appear. Like an article about how China can't manufacture the balls for ball-point pens, or critical parts for jet engines. Maybe a few missing pieces are why Intel cant seem to figure out EUV lithography. None of these things are trivial and probably not documented in a way where a noob could pick them up.

Even just the specific knowledge of building a house is probably a generation removed from most people these days. It scares me to think of just how fragile we really are.

Re: A Model of the Cosmos in the Ancient Greek Antikythera Mechanism

#50

Post by thaumasiotes »

progre wrote: post #22
belval wrote: post #15

What happened to these advanced civilization of the antiquity? We have drawings of highly advanced siege engines yet it seem that after the fall of Rome we all went back to fighting with sticks for a few centuries. Why is that?

Rome was the fiber internet of those days. When west rome collapsed europe went back to dial-up.

That's basically correct. Rome organized things on a very large scale with high productivity. Its replacement by less-organized tiny local systems cratered productivity, and the resulting systems couldn't afford to do the things Rome had done.
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