20 Islamic inventors/inventions that changed the world

[Visitor]

This is great how you manage to debunk them. Good work! Maybe this info should be set on a traffic-heavy news site as well, or a link to it on the main page of faithfreedom.org?

[thunderbalt]

More debunking of "earth is round": Sun is centre of Solar System:

18. Earth is round (cont.):

Next From: http://www.varchive.org/ce/orbit/arisam.htm

Related to Aristarchus (310-230 BC) and his assertion that the sun is the centre of our system:


Aristarchus (310-230 BC)

Aristarchus (320-230 BC):

The first of the Greek philosphers and mathematicians to unravel the celestial plan and announce the discovery was Aristarchus of the isle of Samos. Others before him assumed that the Earth is a sphere and that it moves, but he was the first to formulate plainly the heliocentric theory, the scheme which has the Sun in the center.

Aristarchus lived from about the year 310 before the present era to about 230, and among the geometers he succeeded Euclid and preceded Archimedes. In -288 or -287 he followed Theophrastus as the head of the Peripatetic School established by Aristotle.

Aristarchus’ only extant treatise is “On the Sizes and Distances of the Sun and Moon.” In it he calculated the diameter of the Sun as about seven times the diameter of the Earth, thus estimating the Sun’s volume as about 300 times the volume of the Earth (the actual diameter of the Sun is about 300 times the diameter of the Earth; the solar volume is equal to 1,300,000 volumes of the Earth). In this work of Aristarchus there is nothing indicating his heliocentric theory. It was probably this his realization of the superior mass of the Sun that brought him to his discovery. Or should a celestial body three hundred times larger than the Earth revolve around it each day?

Aristarchus’ book on the planetary system with the Sun in the center did not survive, and we know of it only through references to its content, chiefly by Archimedes. Archimedes, who was twenty-five years his junior, wrote: “Aristarchus brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses. . . . His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the Sun remain unmoved, and that the Earth revolves about the Sun in the circumference of a circle, the Sun lying in the middle of the orbit.” He also added that according to Aristarchus who is in contradiction to “the common account” of astronomers, the universe is many times larger than generally assumed by astronomers, and the fixed stars are at an enormous distance from the Sun and its planets.(1)
Aristarchus regarded the Sun as one of the fixed stars, the closest to the Earth. “Aristarchus sets the Sun among the fixed stars and holds that the Earth moves round the sun’s circle (i.e., ecliptic)” referred another author, centuries later.(2)

Next From:
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Aristarchus.html

Aristarchus was certainly both a mathematician and astronomer and he is most celebrated as the first to propose a sun-centred universe. He is also famed for his pioneering attempt to determine the sizes and distances of the sun and moon. We shall look at these two achievements below.

Aristarchus was a student of Strato of Lampsacus, who was head of Aristotle's Lyceum. However, it is not thought that Aristarchus studied with Strato in Athens but rather that he studied with him in Alexandria. Strato became head of the Lyceum at Alexandria in 287 BC and it is thought that Aristarchus studied with him there starting his studies shortly after that date.

Aristarchus is mentioned by Vitruvius (1st century BC) who was famous as a Roman architect and engineer. Vitruvius was the author of the important treatise De architectura (On Architecture) and in this work he lists men who have been knowledgeable across all branches of science (see for example [3], [4], or [5]):-

Men of this type are rare, men such as were, in past times, Aristarchus of Samos, Philolaus and Archytas of Tarentum, Apollonius of Perga, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, Archimedes and Scopinas of Syracuse, who left to posterity many mechanical and gnomonic appliances which they invented and explained on mathematical principles.

Of course there is the immediate question of what Aristarchus invented, and Vitruvius explains that he invented a sundial in the shape of a hemispherical bowl with a pointer to cast shadows placed in the middle of the bowl.

There is little existing evidence concerning the origin of Aristarchus's belief in a heliocentric system. We know of no earlier hypothesis of this type but in fact the theory was not accepted by the Greeks so apparently never had any popularity.
We only know of Aristarchus's theory because of a summary statement made in Archimedes' The Sand-Reckoner and a similar reference by Plutarch. Archimedes wrote (see for example [3], [4], or [5], or see [1] for a shorter quote):-
"You King Gelon are aware the 'universe' is the name given by most astronomers to the sphere the centre of which is the centre of the earth, while its radius is equal to the straight line between the centre of the sun and the centre of the earth. This is the common account as you have heard from astronomers. But Aristarchus has brought out a book consisting of certain hypotheses, wherein it appears, as a consequence of the assumptions made, that the universe is many times greater than the 'universe' just mentioned. His hypotheses are that the fixed stars and the sun remain unmoved, that the earth revolves about the sun on the circumference of a circle, the sun lying in the middle of the orbit, and that the sphere of fixed stars, situated about the same centre as the sun, is so great that the circle in which he supposes the earth to revolve bears such a proportion to the distance of the fixed stars as the centre of the sphere bears to its surface."

[Dark_Spark]

[Ajax]

I have now deleted the old PDF file and uploaded the newer one. I also filled in the last two missing info:
2. Vision
7. Crankshaft

For 2. Vision, I only debunked only the Camera Obscura claim since Ibn al-Haitham is credited, on record, to be the first to claim "light entering eyes". Unless there are earlier records, the claim stands.

For number 7. Crankshaft, I debunked the major claim and added info on combo lock. I am afraid I don't have much time debunking every single minor claims on number 7 such as mechanical clock and his 50 other inventions.

Anyway, since numbers 1-20 are complete, here is the PDF (6.727 MB).
If anyone wants to make changes (cuz I am done, folk), download this Word file (1.456 MB).

Lastly, FileFactory only keeps files that are downloaded within 30 days of the last download, so this file may stay there for a long time or it may be gone next month. If you are interested in keeping it online as a reference and you have your own server, please host it there.

Edit: I removed the links to the files. Go to the next page and find my post to get the latest version.

[thunderbalt]

[Ajax]

[Visitor]

The story was also posted on slashdot, following digg:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/13/1255202

These sites are heavy traffic sites. And the inventions weren't debunked on a large scale there, probably because many just don't care. And many will simply believe the article...

[happy_X]

[Durandal]

Thanks Thunderbalt & Ajax & everyone else on this thread.Wonderful work.
I have downloaded the PDF & will attempt to get it out to the Partners, Sponsers & MSM.

LGF are starting to debunk it too. Is anyone here is a member there? Registration is closed off & I wanted to post a link to here. Maybe someone can do that for me?

[Agaricus]

It's hardly science, but it could be considered a Muslim contribution to civilisation -

The art of jumping up and down, shouting a lot, calling for the death of infidels and smashing up anything they take an instant dislike to, shall be a lasting contribution to the world, bequeathed by Muslims.

And they never invented the really useful things, like the French Tickler, the Douche Bag and spray-on vaginal deodorants.
_________________
Extremism is the loser's revenge on society
I reserve the right to make public any PMs sent to me. Be warned!

[Visitor]

[Ajax]

You know, this thread really makes me think. Muslims are just like other people, some are born stupid, some are born smart. Though practically the top 20 claims are debunked, that does not mean muslim scientists never contributed anything. Some of the mentioned inventors/engineers/scientists did make contributions in preserving or furthering the knowledge and they did this despite Islamic culture that discourages curiosity and anything that leads muslims to question their faith. Their greatness didn't come from Islam, so they were born with the potential. One must wonder how much of the potential they could have unleashed if they had not been constrained by Islam.

Indeed, I wonder what the world is like today if 1B people have the freedom to think and if a fraction of those 1B people make contribution to science.

[Agaricus]

It has been said here, by some pious pillocks, that all of science is contained in the Koran. Even Ptolemy's view of the world being circled by the Sun had a lot more scientific integrity than loser Mohamed's stupid notion that the sun rose and set in a muddy pond.

I would posit a guess that the only Muslim scientists who made any difference could not have taken all of the Koran "literally:, because if they did, they would be still stuck on what size pebble to use on their arse, and still looking for the source of that great mucky pond.
_________________
Extremism is the loser's revenge on society
I reserve the right to make public any PMs sent to me. Be warned!

['Nuf_Already]

Anyway guys,
I have done something about it
In my small way, I have set a very tiny ball rolling.
I'll let you know if something/anything (probably nothing) comes out of it.
_________________
Vote Labour, Get Sharia.

Labour government is a government for muslims. A Tory government will be a government for islam.

Daub your ballot paper with profanity but do not waste your vote on any of these islamic arse lickers.

[thunderbalt]

More debunking of the Muslim claim of scientific superiority:

7. Water and Mechanical Clocks:



From: http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/early.html

Water Clocks:

Water clocks were among the earliest timekeepers that didn't depend on the observation of celestial bodies. One of the oldest was found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep I, buried around 1500 BCE. Later named clepsydras ("water thieves") by the Greeks, who began using them about 325 BCE, these were stone vessels with sloping sides that allowed water to drip at a nearly constant rate from a small hole near the bottom. Other clepsydras were cylindrical or bowl-shaped containers designed to slowly fill with water coming in at a constant rate. Markings on the inside surfaces measured the passage of "hours" as the water level reached them. These clocks were used to determine hours at night, but may have been used in daylight as well. Another version consisted of a metal bowl with a hole in the bottom; when placed in a container of water the bowl would fill and sink in a certain time. These were still in use in North Africa in the 20th century.

More elaborate and impressive mechanized water clocks were developed between 100 BCE and 500 CE by Greek and Roman horologists and astronomers. The added complexity was aimed at making the flow more constant by regulating the pressure, and at providing fancier displays of the passage of time. Some water clocks rang bells and gongs; others opened doors and windows to show little figures of people, or moved pointers, dials, and astrological models of the universe.

A Macedonian astronomer, Andronikos, supervised the construction of his Horologion, known today as the Tower of the Winds, in the Athens marketplace in the first half of the first century BCE. This octagonal structure showed scholars and shoppers both sundials and mechanical hour indicators. It featured a 24 hour mechanized clepsydra and indicators for the eight winds from which the tower got its name, and it displayed the seasons of the year and astrological dates and periods. The Romans also developed mechanized clepsydras, though their complexity accomplished little improvement over simpler methods for determining the passage of time.

In the Far East, mechanized astronomical/astrological clock making developed from 200 to 1300 CE. Third-century Chinese clepsydras drove various mechanisms that illustrated astronomical phenomena. One of the most elaborate clock towers was built by Su Sung and his associates in 1088 CE. Su Sung's mechanism incorporated a water-driven escapement invented about 725 CE. The Su Sung clock tower, over 30 feet tall, possessed a bronze power-driven armillary sphere for observations, an automatically rotating celestial globe, and five front panels with doors that permitted the viewing of changing manikins which rang bells or gongs, and held tablets indicating the hour or other special times of the day.

Since the rate of flow of water is very difficult to control accurately, a clock based on that flow could never achieve excellent accuracy. People were naturally led to other approaches.


Early water clock


Su Sung’s water clock tower


Su Sung’s water clock tower

Next images from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_clock



A scale model of Su Sung’s clock tower.

Celestial globe on third floor.

Armillary sphere on roof.

Time display panel.

Water powered mechanism.

From: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Jesse/CLOCK1A.html

Until the development of stereography by Hipparchos in the middle of the second century BC., the Greeks measured time with various types of water clocks. The most simple water clock consisted of a large urn that had a small hole located near the base, and a graduated stick attached to a floating base. The hole would be plugged while the urn was being filled with water, and then the stick would be inserted into the urn. The stick would float perpendicular to the surface of the water, and when the hole at the base of the urn was unplugged, the passage of time was measured as the stick descended farther into the urn.
These early clocks were used when equal measurements of time needed to be established. For example, if two orators were to be allotted the same amount of time to speak before an assembly, a water clock of this nature would have been constructed for the occasion. In the second century BC., a man named Ctesibus created a more elaborate water clock for measuring the time of day.
The Clepsydra, as it is called, consisted of four major parts: a vessel for providing a constant supply of water (B), a reservoir and notched floatation rod (F), a display (G), and a device for adjusting the flow of water into the vessel (D). Water was continually poured into the vessel (B), with the overflow escaping from a pipe (I). Water flowed from this vessel into the reservoir at a constant rate. As the reservoir filled with water, the floating, notched rod ascended at a constant rate. This rod was attached to the display (G), which indicated the time of day. The Greeks divided the day into twelve hours of unequal length to insure an equal division of day and night. Because the Greeks divided the day into hours of unequal length, it was necessary to include a device (D) to regulate the flow of water from the vessel (B) into the reservoir (F). By raising the flat, circular cap in the conical vessel (B), the flow of water could be increased, decreasing the length of an hour. In the summer, the day is longer than the night, and in the winter the reciprocal is true. Therefore, in the summer, the clock would be adjusted to extend the length of each day hour.
A second way the Greeks standardized the length of a day was by modifying the clock display. A cylinder with sloping hour lines was used instead of a circular face.
The mechanism worked as follows: as water collected in the reservoir, a pointer would raise as the cylindrical display rotated. In this manner, the pointer would gradually trace the course of the adjusted hours on the cylindrical display. However, the former example, the circular face, is more important because of the modifications made to it after the discovery of stereography by Hipparchos.

A common form of Clepsydra in Greek and Roman times.

Stereography is a technique by which three dimensional objects are projected on two dimensional surfaces. Hipparchos used stereography to create a projection of the celestial sphere from its southern celestial pole to its equatorial plane. In other words, he created a two dimensional image of a three dimensional model--a planispheric projection of the heavens. By separating the projection of the stars and the ecliptic from the projection of the horizon and the equator, Greek scientists could simultaneously represent the progression of the sun along the ecliptic and the daily rotation of the sun around the earth.
In essence, by separating the two projections scientists recreated the rotational components of an armillary sphere on a two dimensional surface. By incorporating these two planispheric projections of the sky into the display of a clepsydra, the Greeks discovered a way for providing the constant source of motion necessary for an accurate representation of time. Recall that an armillary sphere can be used to tell time because it allows one to divide the daily rotation of the sun around the earth into 24 hours, with each hour equal to 15 degrees of the complete rotation.
The problem with keeping time on an armillary sphere is that a constant source of motion is required for the sphere to mimic the actual motion of the sun around the earth. By using stereography, scientists were able to project the armillary sphere on two disks--the first provided the means for measuring sun's position in the sky, and the second disk illustrated the sun's actual path across the sky.
There are two advantages to having the heavens projected on two disks, as opposed to a single sphere. First, it is easier to construct a two dimensional model than a complicated sphere. Second, it is easy to provide constant motion for two disks by using a clepsydra. By incorporating planispheric projections of the heavens into the clepsydra, the Greeks created the first anaphoric clocks.
The anaphoric clock consists of a rotating star map behind a fixed, wire representation of the meridian, the horizon, the equator and the two tropics. The fixed disk consists of several concentric circles, divided into twenty-four sections by a series of small arcs. Each section represents one hour of the day. Because the long arc extending from one end of the disk to the other is the horizon, the first hour of the day begins on the right side of the disk at the horizon. The twelve hours of the day are above the horizon, and the twelve hours of the night are below the horizon. A stereographic map of the ecliptic was attached behind this fixed representation. Although circular in shape, the ecliptic did not rotate around its center.
To accurately represent the daily path of the sun, the ecliptic rotated around a point approximately halfway between the center and the bottom edge of the circle. The ecliptic would complete one rotation around this point every day. Furthermore, the ecliptic was fashioned with 365 holes around its circumference, one for every day of the year, in which was placed a peg to represent the sun. The year began at the vernal equinox, and after each daily rotation of the ecliptic the peg would advance to the next hole along the perimeter of the ecliptic. However, the ecliptic was reset each day so that the peg always began at the horizon. The anaphoric clock was both a clock and a calendar, illustrating the both the time of day and the progression of the sun along the ecliptic.
A second product of stereography is the astrolabe, a device for locating the position of the stars at any point in time. The astrolabe consists of three major parts: First, there is a fixed disk called a tympanum on which one can measure the position of the stars. The tympanum is an engraved plate, making it easier to use than the wire mesh of the anaphoric clock, but because the position of the horizon differs from place to place, each astrolabe typically contained a number of tympanum. Only one tympanum was used at a time, and the inclusion of several tympanum insured that the astrolabe could be used at a variety of positions on the earth.
Second, a skeletal projection of the stars--called a rete--was fastened over the tympanum. The third primary component of an astrolabe is a simple device for measuring the distance of a star above the horizon--usually a rod attached to the back of the astrolabe.
One could produce a map of the sky on any given night by locating a known star, measuring its angular distance above the horizon, and rotating the rete until the representation of the star was aligned with its angular distance on the tympanum. During the Renaissance, the astrolabe was also included in clock designs such as this one by Janus Reinhold.
The evolution of the anaphoric clock depended on several hundred years of Greek science. Thales' crude, spherical representation of the heavens laid a foundation for other Greek scientists to build on. After the construction of the first celestial sphere by Eudoxus, Archimedes created the first mechanical representation of the heavens using a complicated series of gears. However, armillary spheres were more commonly used to study the heavens. Shortly after the construction of Archimedes' sphere, Ctesibus built the first clepsydra. Although it is possible to observe the time on an armillary sphere, it is quite difficult to perpetually mimic the motion of the sun around the earth.
The invention of stereography by Hipparchos made the construction of a dynamic representation of the heavens possible through the combination of planispheric projections with the clepsydra.
The anaphoric clock and its cousin, the astrolabe, not only helped Ptolemy create the extensive catalogue in the Almagest, but also established the foundation of modern time keeping.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clocks

The historian Vitruvius reported that the ancient Egyptians also used a clepsydra, a time mechanism run by flowing water. Historians disagree over the Antikythera mechanism but this is largely thought to be an early mechanical clock.
By the 9th century AD a mechanical timekeeper had been developed that lacked only an escapement mechanism. There is a record that in 1176 Sens Cathedral installed a ‘horologe’—the word still used in French for large clocks. (from Greek hora, hour, and legein, to tell). This word has led scholars to believe that these tower clocks did not employ hands or dials, but “told” the time with audible signals such as bells.
The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient artifact believed to be an early clockwork mechanism. It was discovered in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to about 87 BC.
The wreck was discovered in 1900 at a depth of about 43 m (140 ft), and many statues and other works were retrieved from it by sponge divers. On May 17, 1902, archaeologist Spyridon Stais noticed that one of the pieces of rock had a gear wheel embedded in it.
The mechanism is one of the oldest surviving geared mechanisms, made from bronze in a wooden frame, and has puzzled and intrigued historians of science and technology since its discovery. The most commonly accepted theory of its function is that it was an analog computer designed to model the movements of heavenly objects. Recent working reconstructions of the device support this analysis. The device is all the more impressive for its use of a differential gear, which was previously believed to have been invented in the 16th century.
Derek J. de Solla Price, a science historian at Yale University, published an article on the mechanism in Scientific American in June 1959 while the device was still only partially inspected [1]. In 1973 or 1974, he published an analysis based on gamma ray imaging by Greek archaeologists. He claimed that the device had been built by a Greek astronomer, Geminus of Rhodes. His conclusion was not accepted by experts at the time, who believed that the ancient Greeks had the theoretical knowledge but not the necessary practical skills.
The original mechanism is displayed in the Bronze collection of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, accompanied by a replica. Another replica is on display at the American Computer Museum in Bozeman, Montana.
The Antikythera mechanism, not described in any surviving source, shows that our knowledge of ancient technology is incomplete. In 1996, the Italian physicist Lucio Russo (professor at Università di Roma "Tor Vergata") published an essay putting new light on the issue. The essay has been translated and published in English in 2004 under the title "The Forgotten Revolution: How Science Was Born in 300 BC and Why it Had to Be Reborn".


The Antikythera: Schematic of the Artifact’s mechanism.

From: http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_4.htm

An Ancient Greek Computer?

In 1901 divers working off the isle of Antikythera found the remains of a clocklike mechanism 2,000 years old. The mechanism now appears to have been a device for calculating the motions of stars and planets by Derek J. de Solla Price
From June 1959 Scientific American p.60-7

Among the treasures of the Greek National Archaeological Museum in Athens are the remains of the most complex scientific object that has been preserved from antiquity. Corroded and crumbling from 2,000 years under the sea, its dials, gear wheels and inscribed plates present the historian with a tantalizing problem. Because of them we may have to revise many of our estimates of Greek science.
By studying them we may find vital clues to the true origins of that high scientific technology which hitherto has seemed peculiar to our modern civilization, setting it apart from all cultures of the past.
From the evidence of the fragments one can get a good idea of the appearance of the original object. Consisting of a box with dials on the outside and a very complex assembly of gear wheels mounted within, it must have resembled a well- made 18ih-century clock. Doors hinged to the box served to protect the dials, and on all available surfaces of box, doors and dials there were long Greek inscriptions describing the operation and construction of the instrument. At least 20 gear wheels of the mechanism have been preserved, including a very sophisticated assembly of gears that were mounted eccentrically on a turntable and probably functioned as a sort of epicyclic or differential, gear-system.
Nothing like this instrument is preserved elsewhere.
Nothing comparable to it is known. from any ancient scientific text or literary allusion. On the contrary, from all that we know of science and technology in the Hellenistic Age we should have felt that such a device could not exist.
Some historians have suggested that the Greeks were not interested in experiment because of a contempt-perhaps induced by the existence of the institution of slavery-for manual labor. On the other hand it has long been recognized that in abstract mathematics and in mathematical astronomy they were no beginners but rather "fellows of another college" who reached great heights of sophistication. Many of the Greek scientific devices known to us from written descriptions show much mathematical ingenuity, but in all cases the purely mechanical part of the design seems relatively crude. Gearing was clearly known to the Greeks, but it was used only in relatively simple applications. They employed pairs of gears to change angular speed or mechanical ad- vantage, or to apply power through a right angle, as in the water-driven mill.
Even the most complex mechanical devices described by the ancient writers Hero of Alexandria and Vitruvius contained only simple gearing. For example, the taximeter used by the Greeks to measure the distance travelled by the wheels of a carriage employed only pairs of gears (or gears and worms) to achieve the necessary ratio of movement. It could be argued that if the Greeks knew the principle of gearing, they should have had no difficulty in constructing mechanisms as complex as epicyclic gears. We now know from the fragments in the National Museum that the Greeks did make such mechanisms, but the knowledge is so unexpected that some scholars at first thought that the fragments must belong to some more modern device.
Can we in fact be sure that the device is ancient? If we can, what was its purpose? What can it tell us of the ancient world and of the evolution of modern science? To authenticate the dating of the fragments We must. tell the story of their discovery, which involves the first (though inadvertent) adventure in underwater archaeology. Just before Easter in 1900 a party of Dodecanese sponge-divers were driven by storm to anchor near the tiny southern Greek island of Antikythera (the accent is on the "kyth," pronounced to rhyme with pith). There, at a depth of some 200 feet, they found the wreck of an ancient ship. With the help of Greek archaeologists the wreck was explored; several fine bronze and marble statues and other objects were recovered.
The finds created great excitement, but the difficulties of diving without heavy equipment were immense, and in September, 1901, the "dig' was abandoned. Eight months later Valerios StaÎs, an archaeologist at the National Museum, was examining some calcified lumps of corroded bronze that had been set aside as possible pieces of broken statuary. Suddenly he recognized among them the fragments of a mechanism.
It is now accepted that the wreck occurred during the first century B.C. Gladys Weinberg of Athens has been kind enough to report to me the results of several recent archaeological examinations of the amphorae, pottery and minor objects from the ship. It appears from her report that one might reason-ably date the wreck more closely as 65 B.C. ±15 years.
Furthermore, since the identifiable objects come from Rhodes and Cos, it seems that the ship may have. been voyaging from these islands to Rome, perhaps without calling at the Greek mainland.
The fragment that first caught the eye of StaÎs was one of the corroded, inscribed plates that is an integral part of the Antikythera mechanism, as the device later came to be called. StaÎs saw immediately that the inscription was ancient. In the opinion of the epigrapher Benjamin Dean Meritt, the forms of the letters are those of the 'first century B.C.; they could hardly be older than 100 B.C. nor younger than the time of Christ. The dating is supported by the content of the inscriptions. The words used and their astronomical sense are all of this period. For example, the most extensive and complete piece of inscription is part of a parapegma (astronomical calendar) similar to that written by one Geminos, who is thought to have lived in Rhodes about 77 B.C. We may thus be reasonably sure that the mechanism did not find its way into the wreck at some later period. Furthermore, it cannot have been very old when it was taken aboard the ship as booty or merchandise.
As soon as the fragments had been discovered they were examined by every available archaeologist; so began the long and difficult process of identifying the mechanism and determining its function. Some things were clear from the beginning.
The unique importance of the object was obvious, and the gearing was impressively complex. From the inscriptions and the dials the mechanism was correctly identified as an astronomical device.
The first conjecture was that it was some kind of navigating instrument – perhaps an astrolabe (a sort of circular star-finder map also used for simple observations). Some thought that it might be a small planetarium of the kind that Archirnedes is said to have made. Unfortunately the fragments were covered by a thick curtain of calcified material and corrosion products, and these concealed so much detail that no one could be sure of his conjectures or reconstructions. There was nothing to do but wait for the slow and delicate work of the Museum technicians in cleaning away this curtain. Meantime, as the work proceeded, several scholars published accounts of all that was visible, and through their labors a general picture of the mechanism began to emerge. On the basis of new photographs made for me by the Museum in 1955 I realized that the work of cleaning had reached a point where it might at last be possible to take the work of identification to a new level.
Last summer, wilt the assistance of a grant from the American Philosophical Society, I was able to visit Athens and make a minute examination of the fragments.
By good fortune George Stamires, a Greek epigrapher, was there at the same time; he was able to give me invaluable help by deciphering and transcribing much more of the inscriptions than had been read before. We are now in the position of being able to "join" the fragments and to see how they fitted together in the original machine and when they were brought up from the sea [see illustration].
The success of this work has been most significant, for previously it had been supposed that the various dials and plates had been badly squashed together and distorted. It now appears that most of the pieces are very nearly in their original places, and that we have a much larger fraction of the complete device than had been thought. This work also provides a clue to the puzzle of why the fragments lay unrecognized until StaÎs saw them. When they were found, the fragments were probably held together in their original positions by the remains of the wooden frame of the case. In the Museum the waterlogged wood dried and shriveled.
The fragments then fell apart, revealing the interior of the mechanism, with its gears and inscribed plates. As a result of the new examinations we shall in due course be able to publish a technical account of the fragments and of the construction of the instrument. In the meantime we can tentatively summarize some of these results and show how they help to answer the question.
What is it? There are four ways of getting at the answer First, if we knew the details of the mechanism, we should know what it did. Second, if we could read the dials, we could tell what they showed. Third, if we could understand the inscriptions, they might tell us about the mechanism.
Fourth, if we knew of any similar mechanism, analogies might be helpful. All these approaches must be used, for none of them is complete.
The geared wheels within the mechanism were mounted on a bronze plate. On one side of the plate we can trace all the gear wheels of the assembly and can determine, at least approximately, how many teeth each had and how they meshed together. On the other side we can do nearly as well, but we still lack vital links that would provide a complete picture of the gearing.
The general pattern of the mechanism is nonetheless quite clear. An input was provided by an axle that came through the side of the casing and turned a crown-gear wheel. This moved a big, four-spoked driving-wheel that was connected with two trains of gears that respectively led up and down the plate and were connected by axles to gears on the other side of the plate. On that side the gear-trains continued, leading through an epicyclic turntable and coming eventually to a set of shafts that turned the dial pointers. When the input axle was turned, the pointers all moved at various speeds around their dials.
Certain structural features of the mechanism deserve special attention. All the metal parts of the machine seem to have been cut from a single sheet of low-tin bronze about two millimeters thick; no parts were cast or made of another metal. There are indications that the maker may have used a sheet made much earlier–uniform metal plate of good quality was probably rare and expensive. All the gear wheels have been made with teeth of just the same angle (60 degrees) and size, so that any wheel could mesh with any other.
There are signs that the machine was repaired at least twice; a spoke of the driving wheel has been mended, and a broken tooth in a small wheel has been replaced. This indicates that the machine actually worked.
The casing was provided with three dials, one at the front and two at the back.
The fragments of all of them are still covered with pieces of the doors of the casing and with other debris.
Very little can be read on the dials, but there is hope that they can be cleaned sufficiently to provide information that might be decisive. The front dial is just clean enough to say exactly what it did. It has two scales, one of which is fixed and displays the names of the signs of the zodiac; the other is on a movable slip ring and shows the months of the year. Both scales are carefully marked off in degrees.
The front dial fitted exactly over the main driving-wheel, which seems to have turned the pointer by means of an eccentric drum-assembly. Clearly this dial showed the annual motion of the sun in the zodiac. By means of key letters inscribed on the zodiac scale, corresponding to other letters on the parapegma calendar plate, it also showed the main risings and settings of bright stars and constellations throughout the year.
The back dials are more complex and less legible. The lower one had three slip rings; the upper, four. Each had a little subsidiary dial resembling the "seconds" dial of a watch. Each of the large dials is inscribed with lines about every six degrees, and between the lines there are letters and numbers. On the lower dial the letters and numbers seem to record "moon, so many hours; sun, so many hours"; we therefore suggest that this scale indicates the main lunar phenomena of phases and times of rising and setting. On the upper dial the inscriptions are much more crowded and might well present information on the risings and settings, stations and retrogradations of the planets known to the Greeks (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).
Some of the technical details of the dials are especially interesting. The front dial provides the only known extensive specimen from antiquity of a scientifically graduated instrument.
When we measure the accuracy of the graduations under the microscope, we find that their average error over the visible 45 degrees is about a quarter of a degree.
The way in which the error varies suggests that the arc was first geometrically divided and then subdivided by eye only. Even more important, this dial may give a means of dating the instrument astronomically.
The slip ring is necessary because the old Egyptian calendar, having no leap years, fell into error by 1/4 day every year; the month scale thus had to be adjusted by this amount.
As they are preserved the two scales of the dial are out of phase by 13½ degrees. Standard tables show that this amount could only occur in the year 80 B.C. and (because we do not know the month) at all years just 120 years (i.e., 30 days divided by 1/4 day per year) before or after that date. Alternative dates are archaeologically unlikely: 200 B.C. is too early; 40 A.D. is too late. Hence, if the slip ring has not moved from its last position, it was set in. 80 B.C. Furthermore, if we are right in supposing that a fiducial mark near the month scale was put there originally to provide a means of setting that scale in case of accidental movement, we can tell more. This mark is exactly 1/2 degree away from the present position of the scale, and this implies that the mark was made two years before the setting.
Thus, although the evidence is by no means conclusive, we are led to suggest that the instrument was made about 82 B.C., used for two years (just long enough for the repairs to have been needed) and then taken onto the ship within the next 30 years.
The fragments show that the original instrument carried at least four large areas of inscription: outside the front door, inside the back door, on the plate between the two back dials and on the parapegma plates near the front dial. As I have noted, there are also inscriptions around all the dials, and furthermore each part and hole would seem to have had identifying letters so that the pieces could be put together in the correct order and position.
The main inscriptions are in a sorry state and only short snatches of them can be read. To provide an idea of their condition it need only be said that in some cases a plate has completely disappeared, leaving behind an impression of its letters, standing up in a mirror image, in relief on the soft corrosion products on the plate below. It is remarkable that such inscriptions can be read at all.
But even from the evidence of a few complete words one can get an idea of the subject matter.
The sun is mentioned several times, and the planet Venus once; terms are used that refer to the stations and retrogradations of planets; the ecliptic is named. Pointers, apparently those of the dials, are mentioned. A line of one inscription signfficantly records "76 years, 19 years." This refers to the well-known Calippic cycle of 76 years, which is four times the Metonic cycle of 19 years, or 235 synodic (lunar) months. The next line includes the number "223," which refers to the eclipse cycle of 223 lunar months.
Putting together the information gathered so far, it seems reasonable to suppose that the whole purpose of the Antikythera device was to mechanize just this sort of cyclical relation, which was a strong feature of ancient astronomy.
Using the cycles that have been mentioned, one could easily design gearing that would operate from one dial having a wheel that revolved annually, and turn by this gearing a series of other wheels which would move pointers indicating the sidereal, synodic and draconitic months. Similar cycles were known for the planetary phenomena; in fact, this type of arithmetical theory is the central theme of Seleucid Babylonian astronomy, which was transmitted to the Hellenistic world in the last few centuries B.C. Such arithmetical schemes are quite distinct from the geometrical theory of circles and epicycles in astronomy, which seems to have been essentially Greek.
The two types of theory were unified and brought to their peak in the second century A.D. by Claudius Ptolemy, whose labors marked the triumph of the new mathematical attitude toward geometrical models that still characterizes physics today.

The Antikythera mechanism must therefore be an arithmetical counterpart of the much more familiar geometrical models of the solar system which were known to Plato and Archimedes and evolved into the orrery and the planetarium.
The mechanism is like. a great astronomical clock without an escapement, or like a modern analogue computer which uses mechanical parts to save tedious calculation. It is a pity that we have no way of knowing whether the device was turned automatically or by hand. It might have been held in the hand and turned by a wheel at the side so that it would operate as a computer, possibly for astrological use.
I feel it is more likely that it was permanently mounted, perhaps set in a statue, and displayed as an exhibition piece. In that case it might well have been turned by the power from a water clock or some other device.
Perhaps it is just such a wondrous device that was mounted inside the famous Tower of Winds in Athens. It is certainly very similar to the great astronomical cathedral clocks that were built all over Europe during the Renaissance.
It is to the prehistory of the mechanical I clock that we must look for important analogies the Antikythera mechanism and for an assessment of its significance.
Unlike other mechanical devices, the clock did not evolve from the simple to the complex. The oldest clocks of which we are well informed were the most complicated.
All the evidence points to the fact that the clock started as an astronomical showpiece that happened also to indicate the time. Gradually the timekeeping functions became more important and the device that showed the marvelous clockwork of the heavens became subsidiary. Behind the astronomical clocks of the 14th century there stretches an unbroken sequence of mechanical models of astronomical theory.
At the head of this sequence is the Antikythera mechanism. Following it are instruments and clocklike computers known from Islam, from China and India and from the European Middle Ages.
The importance of this line is very great, because it was the tradition of clock- making that preserved most of man's skill in scientific fine mechanics.
During the Renaissance the scientific instrument-makers evolved from the clockmakers. Thus the Antikythera mechanism is, in a way, the venerable progenitor of all our present plethora of scientific hardware.
A significant passage in this story has to do with the astronomical computers of Islam.
Preserved complete at the Museum of History of Science at Oxford is a 13th-century Islamic geared calendar-computer that has various periods built into it, so that it shows on dials the various cycles of the sun and moon.
This design can be traced back, with slightly different periods but a similar arrangement of gears, to a manuscript written by the astronomer al-Biruni about 1000 A.D. Such instruments am much simpler than the Antikythera mechanism, but they show so many points of agreement in technical detail that it seems clear they came from a common tradition.
The same 60-degree gear teeth are used; wheels are mounted on square-shanked axles; the geometrical layout of the gear assembly appears comparable. It was just at this time that Islam was drawing on Greek knowledge and rediscovering ancient Greek texts.
It seems likely that the Antikythera tradition was part of a large corpus of knowledge that has since been lost to us but was known to the Arabs. It was developed and transmitted by them to medieval Europe, where it .became the foundation for the whole range of subsequent invention in the field of clockwork.
On the one hand the Islamic devices knit the whole story together, and demonstrate that it is through ancestry and not mere coincidence that the Antikythera mechanism resembles a modern clock.
On the other hand they show that the Antikythera mechanism was no flash in the pan but was a part of an important current in Hellenistic civilization.
History has contrived to keep that current dark to us, and only the accidental underwater preservation of fragments that would otherwise have crumbled to dust has now brought it to light. It is a bit frightening to know that just before the fall of their great civilization the ancient Greeks had come so close to our age, not only in their thought, but also in their scientific technology.
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An ancient piece of clockwork shows the deep roots
of modern technology:

WHEN a Greek sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck of a cargo ship off the tiny island of Antikythera in 1900, it was the statues lying on the seabed that made the greatest impression on him. He returned to the surface, removed his helmet, and gabbled that he had found a heap of dead, naked women.
The ship's cargo of luxury goods also included jewellery, pottery, fine furniture, wine and bronzes dating back to the first century BC. But the most important finds proved to be a few green, corroded lumps—the last remnants of an elaborate mechanical device.
The Antikythera mechanism, as it is now known, was originally housed in a wooden box about the size of a shoebox, with dials on the outside and a complex assembly of bronze gear wheels within. X-ray photographs of the fragments, in which around 30 separate gears can be distinguished, led the late Derek Price, a science historian at Yale University, to conclude that the device was an astronomical computer capable of predicting the positions of the sun and moon in the zodiac on any given date.
A new analysis, though, suggests that the device was cleverer than Price thought, and reinforces the evidence for his theory of an ancient Greek tradition of complex mechanical technology.
Michael Wright, the curator of mechanical engineering at the Science Museum in London, has based his new analysis on detailed X-rays of the mechanism using a technique called linear tomography. This involves moving an X-ray source, the film and the object being investigated relative to one another, so that only features in a particular plane come into focus.
Analysis of the resulting images, carried out in conjunction with Allan Bromley, a computer scientist at Sydney University, found the exact position of each gear, and suggested that Price was wrong in several respects.
In some cases, says Mr Wright, Price seems to have “massaged” the number of teeth on particular gears (most of which are, admittedly, incomplete) in order to arrive at significant astronomical ratios. Price's account also, he says, displays internal contradictions, selective use of evidence and unwarranted speculation. In particular, it postulates an elaborate reversal mechanism to get some gears to turn in the right direction.
Since so little of the mechanism survives, some guesswork is unavoidable. But Mr Wright noticed a fixed boss at the centre of the mechanism's main wheel.
To his instrument-maker's eye, this was suggestive of a fixed central gear around which other moving gears could rotate. This does away with the need for Price's reversal mechanism and leads to the idea that the device was specifically designed to model a particular form of “epicyclic” motion.
The Greeks believed in an earth-centric universe and accounted for celestial bodies' motions using elaborate models based on epicycles, in which each body describes a circle (the epicycle) around a point that itself moves in a circle around the earth.
Mr Wright found evidence that the Antikythera mechanism would have been able to reproduce the motions of the sun and moon accurately, using an epicyclic model devised by Hipparchus, and of the planets Mercury and Venus, using an epicyclic model derived by Apollonius of Perga. (These models, which predate the mechanism, were subsequently incorporated into the work of Claudius Ptolemy in the second century AD.)
A device that just modelled the motions of the sun, moon, Mercury and Venus does not make much sense. But if an upper layer of mechanism had been built, and lost, these extra gears could have modelled the motions of the three other planets known at the time—Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In other words, the device may have been able to predict the positions of the known celestial bodies for any given date with a respectable degree of accuracy, using bronze pointers on a circular dial with the constellations of the zodiac running round its edge.
Mr Wright devised a putative model in which the mechanisms for each celestial body stack up like layers in a sandwich, and started building it in his workshop.
The completed reconstruction, details of which appeared in an article in the Horological Journal in May, went on display this week at Technopolis, a museum in Athens.
By winding a knob on the side, celestial bodies can be made to advance and retreat so that their positions on any chosen date can be determined. Mr Wright says his device could have been built using ancient tools because the ancient Greeks had saws whose teeth were cut using v-shaped files—a task that is similar to the cutting of teeth on a gear wheel. He has even made several examples by hand.
How closely this reconstruction matches up to the original will never be known.
The purpose of two dials on the back of the device is still unclear, although one may indicate the year. Nor is the device's purpose obvious: it may have been an astrological computer, used to speed up the casting of horoscopes, though it might just as easily have been a luxury plaything. But Mr Wright is convinced that his epicyclic interpretation is correct, and that the original device modelled the entire known solar system.

The Greeks had a word for it:

That tallies with ancient sources that refer to such devices. Cicero, writing in the first century BC, mentions an instrument “recently constructed by our friend Poseidonius, which at each revolution reproduces the same motions of the sun, the moon and the five planets.” Archimedes is also said to have made a small planetarium, and two such devices were said to have been rescued from Syracuse when it fell in 212BC. This reconstruction suggests such references can now be taken literally.
It also provides strong support for Price's theory. He believed that the mechanism was strongly suggestive of an ancient Greek tradition of complex mechanical technology which, transmitted via the Arab world, formed the basis of European clockmaking techniques.
This fits with another, smaller device that was acquired in 1983 by the Science Museum, which models the motions of the sun and moon. Dating from the sixth century AD, it provides a previously missing link between the Antikythera mechanism and later Islamic calendar computers, such as the 13th century example at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. That device, in turn, uses techniques described in a manuscript written by al-Biruni, an Arab astronomer, around 1000AD.
The origins of much modern technology, from railway engines to robots, can be traced back to the elaborate mechanical toys, or automata, that flourished in the 18th century.
Those toys, in turn, grew out of the craft of clockmaking. And that craft, like so many other aspects of the modern world, seems to have roots that can be traced right back to ancient Greece.



Price reconstruction of the Antikythera

More on the device : http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Kythera.htm