51–58 of 58 posts
A few years back I had started outlining an alternative history scifi story with the premise being that both the technology and the civilization behind the Antikythera Mechanism was not lost but continued to progress up until today. Sort of like William Gibson's "The Difference engine" but with a 2000 year head start towards the singularity.
When I think of a computer, the first thing that pops up in my mind is whether the Antikythera computer is Turing complete? The article makes no mention of this. To give it a title as the first computing device, I think there should be some analysis of operations that it can perform and whether they can constitute as a universal turing machine. Otherwise, we can call stones as computers. They can do addition and subt…
According to Wikipedia, they only had that kind of clocks since the middle ages, but if they were building a mechanism with gears to keep track of other planets in ancient times, surely they must also have done so for local time?
Since they had this mechanism, did they also have regular clocks with gears in ancient times? According to Wikipedia, they only had that kind of clocks since the middle ages, but if they were building a mechanism with gears to keep track of other planets in ancient times, surely they must also have done so for local time?
Another thing to consider is that the concept of doing things at a specific time may not have matter to much of the worlds population at the time and, even though they were capable; there was no demand.
When I think of a computer, the first thing that pops up in my mind is whether the Antikythera computer is Turing complete? The article makes no mention of this. To give it a title as the first computing device, I think there should be some analysis of operations that it can perform and whether they can constitute as a universal turing machine. Otherwise, we can call stones as computers. They can do addition and subt…
But "Turing Complete" is relatively clear cut. To make a long story short, it means it has the equivalent of IF statements and loops. The first such device proposed is probably one of Charles Babbage's devices, which he was never able to complete. The first known to be actually completed is the German electromechanical "Z3" by Konrad Zuse in the early 1940's. In theory you could run Windows programs on both devices; IF you have tons of patience, storage tape, and time. (And want to build an x86 emulator for them.)
If it is a computer that predicts astronomical events, seasons etc. as is theorized by some, and if it was built more than 2000 years ago presumably before people understood how the solar system works (I think back then it was not understood that the planets revolve around the Sun) then they must have based the design on a large number of observations recorded over time. If so, then it is also the first application o…
Not quite. Heliocentrism was introduced around 270 BC by a Greek astronomer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism The oldest estimates for the Antikythera Mechanism are 205 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism So it is very well possible, if not likely, that the builders of the Antikythera Mechanism were aware of the heliocentric model.
Even Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin's grandfather) discussed evolution but Charles really filled in the gaps.
So it might have been an early developing model with discussion among contemporaries before it really "landed".
When I think of a computer, the first thing that pops up in my mind is whether the Antikythera computer is Turing complete? The article makes no mention of this. To give it a title as the first computing device, I think there should be some analysis of operations that it can perform and whether they can constitute as a universal turing machine. Otherwise, we can call stones as computers. They can do addition and subt…
It depends on how "computer" is defined. Being there is a wide range of mechanical devices that can count and/or "execute" formulas based on variables/parameters, the boundary is pretty fuzzy. But "Turing Complete" is relatively clear cut. To make a long story short, it means it has the equivalent of IF statements and loops. The first such device proposed is probably one of Charles Babbage's devices, which he was nev…
It elevates the machine to a common capability level that can solve any computable problem. Therefore, it is important to understand turing completeness.
What’s really interesting for me and something I haven’t been able to find good literature on - is how the civilization seems to severely regress into the dark ages after the ancient times. While Rome fell, Byzantium continued on. The state even continued to refer to themselves as Roman. Certain construction items change and have good explanation, such as the Roman concrete - it’s volcanic components were no longer a…
Rome itself was partly/largely to blame - the idea of a unified greco-roman culture is a myth. When thinking about ancient science and technology, its useful to divide antiquity into three periods: the classical greek period 600-350 bce the Hellenistic Greek period 350 - 150 bce the 'imperial' period 150 bce - whenever ce Virtually all of the great scientific and technical achievements of antiquity were from the Hell…