[ad_1]
Antikytera’s mechanism reveals its secret.
The researchers believe they have discovered the secret of the Antikytera mechanism. Discovered about a century ago, it is considered an ancient astronomical computer.
From the moment it was discovered, scientists have been trying to uncover its secrets. They wanted to know how it works. Finally, a team of researchers from University College London (UCL) announced on Friday that they would have unraveled its mystery, at least in part.
The announcement was made in an article in Scientific Reports magazine, taken over by The Guardian and UPI.
The device is 2,000 years old and shows the motion of the universe, tracking the motion of the five known planets at the time. It also showed the phases of the moon, solar and lunar eclipses. Scientists have not been able to determine exactly how the mechanism managed to achieve these results.
Currently, UCL researchers believe they have solved the mystery. They have managed to rebuild the device, with all its mechanisms and want to test it.
“We believe that the reconstruction is in line with the evidence that scientists have gathered so far from the remains,” said Adam Wojcik. He is a materials science specialist at UCL.
Other researchers have previously tried to reconstruct the mechanism, but the fact that two-thirds of its parts are missing has made the process difficult. They failed to establish how it works.
The mechanism is described as the world’s first analog computer and was discovered in 1901. It was brought to the surface from the bottom of the sea. Sponge divers discovered it among the objects in the wreckage of a sunken ship off the Greek island of Antikythera. The ship is believed to have disappeared in a storm in the 1st century BC between Crete and the Peloponnese.
After decades of research, scientists have discovered that the discovered object is a masterpiece of mechanical engineering.
In a wooden box about a foot high, the mechanism was covered with inscriptions. This is a built-in user manual. The mechanism contained more than thirty bronze gears connected to dials and indicators. The turn of the handle triggered the movement of the sky, as the Greeks knew it at the time.
Michael Wright, a former curator of mechanical engineering at the London Science Museum, put together much of the mechanism. Built a functional replica. However, researchers have never been able to fully understand how the device works. Their efforts were not helped by the surviving remains of 82 separate fragments.
What the researchers discovered
UCL researchers have succeeded in developing new arrangements of parts that would move the planets and other components correctly. The solution allows almost all the gears of the mechanism to fit into a space with a depth of only 25 millimeters.
This was made possible by the work of Wright and other specialists. They also used inscriptions on the mechanism and a mathematical method described by the ancient philosopher Parmenides.
Antikytera’s mechanism reveals its secret
According to the team, the mechanism would show the movement of the Sun, the Moon, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn in concentric rings.
The researchers believe this study brings them closer to understanding how the Antikythera device displayed the sky. It is not clear to them if the design is correct or if the device could be built using old techniques. The concentric rings that make up the screen must rotate on a set of nested axes, hollow inside. In the absence of a lathe for shaping the metal, it is unclear how the ancient Greeks manufactured such components.
