The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets • Hacker News Board

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#181

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:54 AM UTC

chadlavi wrote: post #163

It's really surprising we've never seen another like it in the archaeological record. This is can't be the first thing of this nature that this craftsman ever made.

It does make me curious. I mean, while I'm sure a machine like this would be rare even then, there have HAD to be more of them, or similar, simpler machines with cogs and dials, because these things usually don't exist in a vacuum.

We just don't know how much has been lost due to decay or re-melting stuff. I mean just look around and see how much stuff from, say, 500 years ago is still around. Tools and household items, I mean. It's limited to a few museum pieces. And if you look at some big upheavals / iconoclasms (always wanted to use that word) from recent years in for example the middle east, or the cultural revolution in China, a lot of these historical collections end up destroyed or lost for one reason or another. I mean some people were doing book burnings in the US not long ago.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#182

Post by aa-jv » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 10:58 AM UTC

lisper wrote: post #122

antocv wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Havent you noticed that people who see dark future post and tell it more often the past 30 years, than people who think "it will all be just fine"? I remember the late 90s doom and "oh no millenium 2000" gloom predictions, and 2012 nostradamus end of the world maya calendar the end is near. I read about the 80s cold war "will go hot nuclear any time" and can be seen in movies like Terminator. US will not collapse, no…

I was pretty optimistic in 1990, but since then there is new data. Donald Trump was elected president and led a violent insurrection against the government based on a transparent lie with, so far, no negative consequences. If he runs in 2024 he will win the Republican nomination. Unless the Democrats suspend the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation, he will almost certainly be elected president again (because…

Why was Trump your indicator that US democracy was failing, and not Bush Jr? IMHO, the latter did far more to destroy American democratic society than Trump - but the wealth and riches he provided through his war crimes seems to occlude this fact from most American's point of view.

Trump is just the latest in a long line of failures one could point at as examples of the destruction of American democracy, and he wasn't even the most effective at altering America's sociopolitical landscape, as Bush and Obama were ..

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#183

Post by BoxOfRain » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 12:15 PM UTC

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 still beats the other main business model for content creators which is peppering things with ads and SEO spam by a country mile in my opinion.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#184

Post by FpUser » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

imoverclocked wrote: post #169

FpUser wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"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.

[1] "Preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction is traditionally a top priority of U.S. foreign policy." I didn't say anything about Russia. [1] https://www.nti.org/countries/united-states/

Your post reads as the US is the only one working on NPT. It is not.

As for your reference - US based and owned org is of course totally unbiased. Color me surprised.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#185

Post by Cody_C » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 1:51 PM UTC

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…

Honestly, one of the biggest missteps we have had in the last 100 years is stopping the Apollo program. We would have probably been on Mars in the 80's and reaching out past that by now for sure. In general, I think a lot of people have lost their sense of curiosity and wonder, that need for adventure and discovery.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#186

Post by Cody_C » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 1:53 PM UTC

Every time something like this is found, I think it highlights how little credit we give some ancient people. You have to imagine there were machines they created that were more complex than this that we haven't discovered. There are a lot of people in our current times that couldn't build this even with an entire machine shop at their disposal.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#187

Post by lisper » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

aa-jv wrote: post #182

lisper wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was pretty optimistic in 1990, but since then there is new data. Donald Trump was elected president and led a violent insurrection against the government based on a transparent lie with, so far, no negative consequences. If he runs in 2024 he will win the Republican nomination. Unless the Democrats suspend the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation, he will almost certainly be elected president again (because…

Why was Trump your indicator that US democracy was failing, and not Bush Jr? IMHO, the latter did far more to destroy American democratic society than Trump - but the wealth and riches he provided through his war crimes seems to occlude this fact from most American's point of view. Trump is just the latest in a long line of failures one could point at as examples of the destruction of American democracy, and he wasn'…

Yes, the decay certainly goes back further than Trump. Before Trump there was Bush and before Bush there was Nixon. You could probably trace it back as far as the JFK and RFK assassinations, maybe further. Some see what is happening now as an extension of the Civil War.

But Trump is unique in that he:

1. Has never accepted his 2020 election defeat

2. Wields enough control over the rank and file of his party to have the power to terminate the career of any Republican who crosses him in any way, and has demonstrated the willingness to use that power without reservation

3. Demanded that election officials to commit election fraud (and was impeached for it, but not removed from office)

4. Incited a violent insurrection against the government and has suffered no negative consequences for it

It is his ability and willingness to use his power to promulgate the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen that makes him a much bigger threat to democracy than anything the U.S. has seen since the Civil War.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#188

Post by joshspankit » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

chrisbrandow wrote: post #126

This detailed description and his musings make me further convinced that if high quality clear glass technology had been created at this time, human history and discovery could have been profoundly different. Eyeglasses, telescopes, and microscopes would have allowed the Greeks to take discovery to the next level. Surely that’s an oversimplification, but I always wonder.

There are some rather compelling theories positing that ancient Egyptians discovered how they could make a type of glass that they moulded in to a lens at least 5M in diameter. At that size, the focused light from the sun gets hot enough to melt granite (among other things).

I thin you’re right that they likely would not have had the clarity to make those smaller optics useful, but it feels interesting enough to add here.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#189

Post by pohl » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 2:27 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #158

pohl wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If democratically-elected government disappears, something will fill that power void, and they will control that arsenal. Who knows what could happen with them.

>"Who knows what could happen with them." Same as with the democratic government. Dictators are not suicidal. They prefer to be left alone.

Tell the people of Ukraine right now how much Putin wants to be left alone.

Re: The Antikythera mechanism reveals new secrets

#190

Post by amznbyebyebye » Wed, Jan 05, 2022, 3:27 PM UTC

adolph wrote: post #159

amznbyebyebye wrote: post #70

The 19 year Metonic cycle is interesting. I think it is also the orbital period of the moons nodes (aka dragon head/tail or north node/south node or rahu/Ketu in Indian astronomy). I wonder if there is a connection.

Then you’d might find the axial cycle interesting, and this sculpture depicting it. The plaza’s terrazzo floor is actually a celestial map that marks the time of the dam’s creation based on the 25,772-year axial precession of the earth. https://medium.com/the-long-now-foundation/the-26-000-year-a...

Fascinating, I think Yukteswar Giri (teacher of Yogananda) tried to make a case that the Yuga cycles were tied to the axial precession. Somehow these cosmic manifestation have a parallel on what happens on earth, similar to how the earths rotation around the sun creates some regular periodic change (aka the 4 seasons)