The Antikythera Mechanism

Posted by simonebrunozzi on Thursday May 28, 2026 @04:06PM
from the spacedaily.com dept.

https://spacedaily.com/sd-the-antikythera-mechanism-recovered-from-a-roman-shipwreck-in-1901-turned-out-to-be-a-hand-cranked-bronze-computer-that-could-predict-eclipses-and-track-the-irregular-orbit-of-the-moon-and-nothing/

( 5 comments | 2 points | on HN )

Re:The Antikythera Mechanism by masonhipp on Thursday May 28, 2026 @04:58PM (#48315370)

here’s a much better article with images of an actual reproduction: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a695541...

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Re:The Antikythera Mechanism by codeduck on Thursday May 28, 2026 @05:00PM (#48315403)

A channel called Clickspring on Youtube covers the building of a reproduction and also shows a lot of the tooling that could have been used to make it. Well worth watching.

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Re:The Antikythera Mechanism by Danox on Thursday May 28, 2026 @06:29PM (#48316427)

Absolutely a thing of genius years before anything else.

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Re:The Antikythera Mechanism by Smoosh on Friday May 29, 2026 @06:50AM (#48321473)

I have to think that there were other similar things contemporaneous with this device as the skill and knowledge displayed in its design and execution would not come ex nihilo.

Sadly they seem to be lost to us.

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Re:The Antikythera Mechanism by neotek on Friday May 29, 2026 @08:21AM (#48322181)

I saw the mechanism in person recently on a trip to Greece and it was a strangely electric experience. That such a thing could have been made two thousand years ago is hard to believe. It seems almost supernatural, an artefact of time travel or something. I watched it for more than an hour, but it didn't do anything.

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