Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#201

Post by scionthefly » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:33 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #109

jrochkind1 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you suggesting if the dinosaurs had tried harder to "evolve in time", they could have better survived an asteroid hit? I don't think that's how evolution works. For humans either.

Humans could most certainly survive an asteroid if the humans worked at the technology and industrial capacity to do so. Including technology and industrial capacity involved in redirecting asteroids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7zdeQ-Uw8k (To redirect Chixculub would require a MUCH larger capability, probably on the order of 10 million tons in orbit, but that's possible with a fleet of large reusable rockets ca…

You assume we would be able to organize the social, political, and financial impetus to take on a task like that in a unified way that has a chance to succeed. Recent events seem to say that we are at least as likely to just fight about it until the asteroid hits.

For greatest success I think there would need to be two but probably not many more than two major efforts going on simulatneously, in much the same way that CMS and ATLAS experiments at CERN were independently looking for the Higgs. If one fails for some unforseen technical reason, the other might not if they took a different approach.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#202

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #93

ceejayoz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the interesting possibilities for the Fermi Paradox is the fact that we've wiped out the readily accessible deposits of iron, coal, oil, etc. A second go at the industrial revolution would be much harder, if we regressed that far.

Japan has very low quality iron ores. Yet they turned out (arguably) the best steel swords in the world. Constraints don't always lead to bad outcomes.

[deleted]

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#203

Post by mcguire » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

Robotbeat wrote: post #104

ceejayoz wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that vastly underestimates the dependency tree in modern society. Storing hydrogen in useful quantities is tough, requiring fairly sophisticated metallurgy and cryogenics. Finding out we've got a hard to replace left-pad module somewhere far up the tech tree wouldn't be fun.

The dependency tree of 19th Century or early 20th century society is a lot more straightforward, however. And no, you don't need such sophistication for storing useful amounts of hydrogen. Storing large amounts of hydrogen (in this case, also mixed with poisonous CO) was solved in the beginning of the 19th Century (well, late 18th century) in Britain and Germany by using very large near-atmospheric storage vessels ca…

That gas holder article says they contained methane or coal gas. Methane's density is 0.657 kg/m³; hydrogen's is 0.08375 kg/m³.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#204

Post by JJMcJ » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:37 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #172

tzs wrote: post #67

I think we tend to underestimate what ancient technology could produce because we forget that in ancient times they often operated on longer timescales than we do. With our technology for example we could make all the parts for the Antikythera mechanism in a short time. The ancient Greeks definitely had no technology that would have allowed them to do that, so we see the existence of the Antikythera mechanism as a gr…

Same goes for the perfectly fitted stones in Inkan walls in Peru. They weren't built by aliens or telekinesis, but rather unoccupied workers that rubbed on the stones all day for decades. There is plenty of evidence that these walls and cities were never in a "finished" state, but always in progress, with partially complete stones and scattered pieces not yet near the wall in many sites.

Recently a group finished a stone block of the size in the Egyptian pyramids in just a few days.

Another group hauled a Stonehenge sized block of stone from area the stones came from to the site of Stonehenge in about two weeks.

Estimate is that, using existing tools of the time, 100 stonemasons could have done the Sphinx in about five years.

And we have medieval and classical buildings in Europe where the building methods are fully known and there were no flying saucers or other magical methods.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#205

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

xyzzy21 wrote: post #194

The presumption that other people aren't smart enough to do what you can or imagine has a name: bigotry. The "shouldn't exist" is bigotry. It's also evidence that we see even today that knowledge is fragile and easily lost when it has a large tacit component. Most things technological are highly fragile because half of the knowledge required to create them is tacit. See also: "FOG BANK".

"Shouldn't exist" simply means that nothing else like it has ever been found, and (almost) nothing like it has even been described in surviving literature.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#206

Post by fancifalmanima » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #148

isk517 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan definitely produced some of the most beautiful looking swords, and they are extremely impressive given the quality of iron they are forged out of, but I don't think any sane person would choose one to take into battle given any other option.

I am confused. Are you saying that the quality of the iron makes them shit swords, or that guns are better than swords?

It would depend a lot on what time period you're talking about. I'm not an expert, but I do a bit of amateur forging and have learned a couple of things just reading about this craft. By the 14 or 1500s, spring steel had been developed in Europe. This would enable a sword to flex rather than break. Japanese swords from the time weren't flexible and were generally more prone to breaking. This had a lot to do with the raw materials that were available. They also tend to have softer mild steel core to help with this problem, with a very hard and sharp edge. If the entire blade were made of the same material as the edge, it would be extremely inflexible and brittle. They're kind of designed in a way where a part of the every hard and brittle edge can crack, but maybe it won't extend all the way up through the blade leaving it somewhat usable. The European longsword from the time might just flex in the same circumstance.

That's not to say that European swords were better than Japanese swords in every way. This is one of many, many factors. And I'm sure there were plenty of crappy longswords at the time (and crappy katans), so you kind of also have to decide if you're comparing the best examples, average examples, or low quality items as well. The skill of the wielder is also important. If you're throwing out a bunch of random soldiers without a ton of training and giving them a sword, you might want to give them something they're less likely to break. My understanding that is there was a period in Japan where only samurai were allowed to carry swords (if my reading is to be believed), who were generally very skilled. They would probably know how to avoid putting their blade in situations where it would be prone to breaking.

And Japanese traditional Japanese sword making techniques are extremely impressive and interesting to read about given the materials that were available at the time.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#207

Post by nathias » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:39 PM UTC

jccooper wrote: post #132

nathias wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, what metallurgical skills were they missing? Wouldn't even a very crude steam machine be better than animal harness? Maybe the missing part was coal, burning wood would be very inefficient ...

Romans had bloomery-made wrought iron only, which was a hand-made process of uneven quality, and made only in small batches. The role of carbon (and how to introduce it) was only vaguely known, so quality would vary. It would be quite difficult to make a boiler with bloomery iron. The blast furnace only showed up around 1100. The Romans could certainly have made a Newcomen-style low-pressure steam engine; the first b…

Couldn't there be ceramic boilers? Roman steam-punk legions of amfora-powered siege weapons ...

> Perhaps they would have found employment in the Roman world in the same place they did historically: de-watering mines.

It could be that the coincidence of coal mining and coal being good steam power source was what was required to kickstart it.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#208

Post by darkwater » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

ale42 wrote: post #47

darkwater wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How comes that circa 2000 VB6 was the most hated and belittled programming language out there? I was there, I remember it. Now it's suddenly part of the golden age of desktop programming? I think you should put your nostalgia glasses off.

I think that the most hated part of VB6 was more the BASIC language rather than the GUI design part... but maybe I'm wrong.

I also remember DLL hell and all the issues to make safely run on every Windows installation a VB6 program and its runtime. But I agree with the other commenters that the IDE and the visual part was really nice (too nice for the average skilled developer of the time, VB6 was the NodeJS of that time)

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#209

Post by ncmncm » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

mikewave wrote: post #161

gpm wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would whatever the rust turns into be any less accessible (ignoring availability of coal) than what we started out with though? I don't pretend to know the entire "iron cycle", but it seems like it ought to just be turning back into the same sort of minerals that we originally extracted it from?

Sure, if you have a billion years to wait for it to all run through the rock cycle again.

The process that concentrated the iron ore we rely on does not operate anymore.

Fortunately, despite millions of tons of production every year, we are nowhere near using up the ore.

Re: Antikythera Mechanism: An ancient 'computer' that 'shouldn't exist' [video]

#210

Post by SavantIdiot » Fri, Dec 10, 2021, 7:44 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #67

I think we tend to underestimate what ancient technology could produce because we forget that in ancient times they often operated on longer timescales than we do. With our technology for example we could make all the parts for the Antikythera mechanism in a short time. The ancient Greeks definitely had no technology that would have allowed them to do that, so we see the existence of the Antikythera mechanism as a gr…

There is also this implicit form of -ism built into it, in that certain groups of people were "obviously" less intelligent so it is unlikely they could ever build something magnificent or intellectually obscure. Whether it is a belief that aliens must have built Mayan or Egyptian Pyramids because of a bias that they were dumb savages, or whether it is dismissal of alternate forms of successful government and social organization in "uncultured" parts of the world.

It is easier to assume something like "this mechanism shouldn't exist" if you (general "you") think a group of people are already beneath you due to your implicit biases.