[HN Gopher] The Antikythera Mechanism Episode 11 - Inscribing th...
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The Antikythera Mechanism Episode 11 - Inscribing the Back Plate -
Part 1
Author : gillesjacobs
Score : 61 points
Date : 2022-05-14 15:52 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| velcrovan wrote:
| Finally!
| lini wrote:
| Went to Athens last month and saw the mechanism (a replica) in
| person in one of the museums. Overall, for me it was a strange
| experience looking at the ancient Greek civilization - these
| people were not thinking about simple things like sustenance or
| other basic needs. They were very much involved in improving
| their minds in any way possible - democracy, arts, science. All
| that time they spent on improving their civilization in every way
| got me thinking of all the time we lose today in meaningless
| stuff like social media, or looking selfishly at the world and
| other people.
| rs_rs_rs_rs_rs wrote:
| > these people were not thinking about simple things like
| sustenance or other basic needs.
|
| Of course not, they had slaves for that.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think an interesting exercise is to go back through newspaper
| archives and just take a peek at some random front pages. The
| theme is that everything is terrible and the sky is falling.
| That continues today. What was missed at the time was that the
| sky wasn't falling and that everything wasn't actually that
| terrible.
|
| Humanity will endure Tik Tok, wars, pandemics, climate change,
| and pretty much whatever else the big random number generator
| in the sky throws at us. Find something that's meaningful to
| you and spend your time there. We're all going to be OK!
| marcodiego wrote:
| > pretty much whatever else the big random number generator
| in the sky throws at us.
|
| It didn't work that well with dinosaurs.
| aurizon wrote:
| There was no patent protection back in these days. A smart
| craftsman could not draw on recorded repositories of past work
| and if he came up with a new design, anyone could copy it and
| sell in competition. Some worked there way into general use, but
| as far as I know there was never a 'next generation' in most
| cases. The innovator kept it totally secret. So a machine that,
| say, pitted olives, could make a man rich as bought olives and
| pitted them with his machine and sold the pitted olives. Other
| people had to pit them with sharp sticks or whatever. Some Roman
| nobles killed craftsmen who made them a good work to ensure no-
| one else could have one. Things stumbled along until the 1500's
| when Kings would grant Crown Patents so only you could make them.
| This gradually expanded to the modern patent system in the
| 1700-1800's??
|
| Back in Greek times smart people guarded their secrets - and
| these were all hand made, holes drilled, bearings made, plates
| scribed with the workman's notes often in his head. Logically a
| mechanism would be made, improved, improved again etc. There may
| have been a dozen preceding Antikythera mechanisms on an
| improvement path, as well as successor machines - none of which
| survived to the present.
|
| The precious nature of brass bronze meant that anyone who found
| would melt it to sell for weapons etc. There may be dozens more
| hidden under water in collapsed caves etc.??
| gus_massa wrote:
| This is a new episode after more than a year. :)
|
| I highly recommend this serie of videos about building a
| reconstruction of the The Antikythera Mechanism with tool similar
| to the ancient tools. [Warning: It's a huge time sink] Complete
| playlist:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ML4tw_UzqZE&list=PLZioPDnFPN...
| smitty1e wrote:
| We systematically underestimate the wisdom of the ancients.
|
| The sophistication of that 19-year lunar cycle bespeaks centuries
| of noodling on the problem, to say nothing of the skill on
| display executing the construction.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Who underestimates the wisdom of the ancients?
| smitty1e wrote:
| People, generally.
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