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The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

scientificamerican.com

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Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#101

Post by imoverclocked »

FpUser wrote: post #40
lisper wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is inconceivable for us to imagine a rapid regression today To the contrary, I'm finding it increasingly likely that I will see the collapse of civilization within my lifetime, and I'm 57. I see two prospective tipping points on the horizon: the collapse of democracy in the U.S. leading to nuclear war, and climate change leading to world-wide food shortages. The former seems likely within 5-10 years, and the lat…

Why would collapse of democracy in the US lead to nuclear war?

The US is a major nuclear power and is one body that actively works to counter-balance nuclear proliferation in the world.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#102

Post by bsenftner »

lisper wrote: post #98
bsenftner wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that is an interesting take - are you thinking an emergent hive mind is in social media, and that is controlling society? Quite interesting...

More or less. Human brains are an emergent property of a large number of highly interconnected neurons, so I see no reason something similar couldn't emerge from a large number of highly interconnected brains. But the thing to keep in mind is that this emergent thing is not necessarily conscious or intentional, but if it reaches the point where it self-replicates then it becomes effectively a life form that starts to…

Yes, I follow your reasoning. I buy the existence of a subtle, self perpetuating public attitude. It may emergently coordinate to the degree it is indistinguishable from an independant living entity. Once it is named, it will be seen and observed everywhere, and blamed for all manner of evils. It's the boogieman, in reality: a manifestation of all our collective fears.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#104

Post by ecpottinger »

reactspa wrote: post #5

> in his model, the 223-tooth gear turned much too fast for it to make sense. But in my model, the 223-tooth gear rotates very slowly Science! (Clarification: it all sounds very narrative-fallacy to me. Hey, but feel free to downvote the opinion of a contrarian!)

I am sure he mention the engaging a 38 tooth gear that meant a 19 year cycle was done at half the speed first thought was needed.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#105

Post by cercatrova »

dghughes wrote: post #80
jaggederest wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of his videos are behind a Patreon paywall these days, as far as I can tell. He's still working on the Antikythera mechanism, it's just only visible to patrons.

Patreon has gone from helpful support by a few to an exclusive club.

It was always meant for people to be patrons of someone, like artists were back in the Renaissance. It's simply a way for people to be paid for their work, and what better way than exclusivity? That's basically the same as being able to use software only if it's paid for, like most SaaS these days.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#106

Post by krallja »

xyzzyz wrote: post #82
marcosdumay wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had nothing like the Modern age's science. I can't imagine any reason for it not appearing there given enough time, but they didn't have the dispassionate questioning of every theory and total submission to empiricism that are fundamental to science today. Math advanced a huge amount during the Medieval age. They simply didn't have good tools for calculations, and nearly all of the Modern Age's math was based on…

You are giving way too much credit to science in the early phase of industrial revolution. Science has been extremely important in technological development from late 1800s onwards, but the most critical leaps of late 1700s and early 1800s had little to do with Newton-style science. Instead, they mostly about engineering improvements, combined with a newly widespread social attitude that technology actually can be si…

> The scientists did occasionally deliver something valuable, often in fact paradigm-changing, but importantly, this only became very relevant around the turn of 20th century.

James Watt was only able to build efficient steam engines because Joseph Black discovered latent heat in 1761. Without steam engines, there’s no industrial revolution.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#107

Post by imoverclocked »

skunkworker wrote: post #22

Every time I think about the Antikythera mechanism the quote by Arthur C. Clarke comes to mind "If the insight of the Greeks had matched their ingenuity…we would not merely be puttering around on the Moon, we would have reached the nearer stars." It's a little sensational but also makes me think of what could've been, if certain paths had been realized in past times, and also makes me put the technical knowledge of p…

I find it to be a good reminder that whatever complexity we have managed to create today likely won't last for 1000s or even 100s of years. We initially didn't believe that precision gears were possible for the time period this device comes from.

Sometimes I think about how I might present a progression from electricity and transistors to fully functional computers for a future society that somehow lost the knowledge. Most of our computing devices won't last 100 years. The ones that do might be older equipment with a little more "silicon redundancy" or even materials that are more resistant to corrosion... if they aren't mined for it first. Given that we store almost all of our current knowledge in electronic form, corroding/losing the ability to retrieve it will likely mean the end of the art.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#109

Post by FpUser »

imoverclocked wrote: post #101
FpUser wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would collapse of democracy in the US lead to nuclear war?

The US is a major nuclear power and is one body that actively works to counter-balance nuclear proliferation in the world.

>"is one body that actively works"

Not true. Unless you count invading other countries under false pretenses as one.

If you think Russia is interested in proliferated I have a nice bridge.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#110

Post by dougmwne »

topper-123 wrote: post #28
dougmwne wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This realization hit me after spending a few weeks in Italy seeing the remains of the Roman Empire. I had a building sense that they were awfully close to the industrial revolution, that there was no particular reason it couldn’t have happened thousands of years ago in the face of a highly organized, long lived, innovative empire with enormous resources. I think it’s an accident of history that it happened in England…

A fun alternative time line to think about would be if the romans had progressed, had depleted all coal and oil resources, leaving us today in a postapocalyptic wasteland, having the knowledge how to build an advanced society, but lacking the ressources…

I would read that book.
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