Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 206 posts

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#131

Post by Vetch »

toomanydoubts wrote: post #111
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…

I find interesting that Archimedes came so, so close to calculus millenniums before Newton. I wonder how things would've panned out had him had the mathematical tools to formalize calculus.

You're correct that Archimedes presaged core concepts of calculus: in his work building upon the method of exhaustion, quadrature for certain conic sections and tangent of a spiral. It's nonetheless quite a ways up the tech-tree from calculus. Important developments were also contributed by al-Tūsī in the 12th century and Kerala school mathematicians (Indian, prominently around 14th century, though their broader influence is uncertain).

As advanced as Ancient Greek mathematics was, its heavy emphasis on geometric formulations made many developments more difficult. The Hindu-Arabic numeral system, algebra, invention of a zero number concept (Cardan's proof of the cubic and quartic would have gone significantly easier if he had utilized zero as a number) and Descartes's Analytic geometry were important developments on the way to calculus. By the time of Barrow's and Fermat's contributions, nearly all essential components of calculus existed, just requiring some genius to grab, synthesize and streamline them.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#132

Post by kromem »

cdot2 wrote: post #130

I don't think people have put enough stock in the possibility that the Antikythera device was primarily used for astrology. This would likely have been the primary reason an ancient person would want to know the positions of the stars and planets on a specific date and time.

At the time the two fields weren't seen as separate things as they are now.

Astrology and astronomy were pursued by the same figures, much as Newton pursued alchemy as well as physics.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#133

Post by lovemenot »

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…

This is epitomised by the word "meme":

  an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture
1976, introduced by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#134

Post by kromem »

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…

Their insight was great as well.

Most people today are familiar with Aristotle and Plato because the early Christian church embraced Neoplatonism's "perfect design" - but there was a very popular school of philosophy frequently overlooked because it was declared heretical.

The Epicureans not only were the first we know of in history to theorize that light was made up of tiny quantized parts moving quickly (the experiment showing this is what Einstein won his Nobel Prize for), they also thought the reason life existed was that out of chaos there were a great many worlds out in the void many which didn't have life at all and we just happened to be on a world with life.

They even thought that the first living creatures didn't have any senses at all, and through intermediary "freaks" eventually beings like us came to exist.

So there were ancient minds pondering quantized light, the anthropic principle, and evolution.

They just didn't have any ways to demonstrate who was actually right, and the group that eventually seized power declared much of what ended up being correct heretical and banned it.

They had BOTH insight and ingenuity. What they didn't have was the security or indispensability to protect those qualities from the masses who had neither.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#135

Post by [deleted] »

cercatrova wrote: post #105
dghughes wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#136

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

cercatrova wrote: post #105
dghughes wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SaaS feels like a huge scam, not sure that is the direction I’d go on that argument.

I miss buying Photoshop on a disc and it was yours forever.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#137

Post by cercatrova »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #136
cercatrova wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SaaS feels like a huge scam, not sure that is the direction I’d go on that argument. I miss buying Photoshop on a disc and it was yours forever.

Ok, then using your Photoshop example, it's like only being able to use it if you buy it. Same thing, doesn't have to be a recurring purchase.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#138

Post by naikrovek »

I am ashamed that we think so little of ancient cultures.

they weren't stupid. they were as smart as we are, perhaps smarter.

they were far fewer in number than we are today, and the library of technology they could draw from to solve a problem was much smaller for them, is all.

nothing about the Antikythera mechanism is complex; the math is simple and the construction is that of a machine made many times and made slightly smaller each iteration, as sections are moved to fit into a more compact arrangement.

even coming up with the ratios to describe the motion of the planets would be easily done by one or more people who were dedicated observers who wrote their observations down.

nothing here is complex, yet we still consider new discoveries about the device which reveal unpredicted complexity to be "too advanced" to be made at the time it appears to be made...

I don't know why scientists do this. why can't we just admit that we don't know what ancient civilizations were capable of, rather than assuming they were incapable of simple tasks?

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#139

Post by w0de0 »

xenadu02 wrote: post #83
me_me_mu_mu wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really dumb question, but one I must ask after reading this article and then your post. Could it be possible that humans had some pretty awesome technology even farther in the past than we know (beyond earliest recorded history), but due to some extinction event all records of society from that time were wiped out? For example if we had some crazy extinction event, the dark ages that would follow are pretty scary to…

We can be reasonably certain there were no such civilizations on Earth prior to modern human history, otherwise we'd see evidence in the archeological record or even fossil record. I don't mean finding silicon chips in a fossil or anything so advanced. I mean very simple things like ceramic chips or bits of worked glass that would survive for millions of years. The only way a civilization at least as advanced as bron…

> archeological record or even fossil record

The Earth may (I think it likely) have been tectonically active for long enough to destroy any such traces of an advanced civilization arising during its first couple eons (oldest macro-fossil: 800m years; Earth: 4.5b years).

Better disproof is perhaps the absence of evidence in the geologic/atmospheric record. One imagines that a geologist in the deep future could detect a long-forgotten humanity via the record's abrupt spike in CO2 output, just as present geologists know of the Great Oxidation Event.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#140

Post by 0134340 »

weberer wrote: post #115
tehjoker wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm thinking more of their cold war strategizing, but I also ask you, have you ever met an American QAnon enthusiast? ;)

Yes, and they seem to be mostly anti-war.

The ones I know of seem pretty bent on it, especially civil war.
Post reply on HN