amazing ......... can you identify ?

[Buster T]

I remember this, and was reading today on it ......... can ya'll identify this thing ?

Don't cheat !

[Red Hawk]

I'd say Value from an sunken ship?

[Charlie P]

It looks like an air tight hatch to a submarine.

[Red Hawk]

ORIGINAL: Charlie P

It looks like an air tight hatch to a submarine.

That would have been my second guess

[Buster T]

Antikythera mechanism

http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~tony/whatsnew/column/antikytheraI-0400/kyth1.html


Sometime before Easter 1900, Elias Stadiatos, a Greek sponge diver, discovered the wreck of an ancient cargo ship off Antikythera island at a depth of 42 m. Sponge divers retrieved several statues and other artifacts from the site. The mechanism itself was discovered on May 17, 1902, when archaeologist Valerios Stais[1] noticed that a piece of rock recovered from the site had a gear wheel embedded in it. Examination revealed that the "rock" was in fact a heavily encrusted and corroded mechanism that had survived the shipwreck in three main parts and dozens of smaller fragments. The device itself was surprisingly thin, about 33 cm (13in) high, 17 cm (6.75in) wide and 9 cm (3.5in) thick, made of bronze and originally mounted in a wooden frame. It was inscribed with a text of over 2,000 characters, about 95% of which have been deciphered. The full text of the inscription has not yet been published.

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

[Buster T]

I had read about this in the past, had forgotten the name of it, and in today's news ?

Whomever designed this thing was a brilliant genius of a man, likely on the same scale as some of the most brilliant men to have ever lived. I mean, think of HOW this thing was built, 1,000 years ago with the tools and knowledge they had ? Unbelievable .... it really is amazing .....





http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/11/30/astronomy.calculator.reut/index.html

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- An ancient astronomical calculator made at the end of the 2nd century BC was amazingly accurate and more complex than any instrument for the next 1,000 years, scientists said on Wednesday.

The Antikythera Mechanism is the earliest known device to contain an intricate set of gear wheels. It was retrieved from a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901 but until now what it was used for has been a mystery.

Although the remains are fragmented in 82 brass pieces, scientists from Britain, Greece and the United States have reconstructed a model of it using high-resolution X-ray tomography.

They believe their findings could force a rethink of the technological potential of the ancient Greeks.

"It could be described as the first known calculator," said Professor Mike Edmunds, a professor of astrophysics at Cardiff University in Wales.
"Our recent work has applied very modern techniques that we believe have now revealed what its actual functions were."

The calculator could add, multiply, divide and subtract. It was also able to align the number of lunar months with years and display where the sun and the moon were in the zodiac.

Edmunds and his colleagues discovered it had a dial that predicted when there was a likely to be a lunar or solar eclipse. It also took into account the elliptical orbit of the moon.

"The actual astronomy is perfect for the period," Edmunds told Reuters.
"What is extraordinary about the thing is that they were able to make such a sophisticated technological device and to be able to put that into metal," he added.

The model of the calculator shows 37 gear wheels housed in a wooden case with inscriptions on the cover that related to the planetary movements.

Francois Charette, of the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, said the findings, reported in the journal Nature, provide a wealth of data for future research.

"Newly deciphered inscriptions that relate to the planetary movements make it plausible that the mechanism originally also had gearings to predict the motion of the planets," he said in a commentary.

Edmunds described the instrument as unique, saying there is nothing like it in the history of astronomy. Similar complicated mechanisms were not been seen until the appearance of medieval cathedral clocks much later.
"What was not quite so apparent before was quite how beautifully

designed this was," he said. "That beauty of design in this mechanical thing forces you to say 'Well gosh, if they can do that what else could they do?'"

[Buster T]

The journal Nature has in the supplementary material a lot of the ancient text and their translations. The translations are as follows:
Table 1. Provisional Translation of the Front Door Inscriptions
1. ---
2. ---
3. ---
4. space (or distance) between
5. from the beginning
6. ---
7. --- restore (or which has been restored)
8. ---
9. towards the Sun
10 .equal and brings the Sun upon to the equal
11. brought upon the Sun the minor stationary point then occurs distance
12. brings towards the Sun up to --- and conjunction
13. on to the maximum following within other days
14. [stationa]ry point as the previous one 39
15. day, makes before one to the
16. interval brings upon to the
17. ---
18. the Sun
19. brings upon every (verb could be coincide)
20. brings upon [days]
21. days and remains until the eastern (eastern = adjective in the sense of dawn)
22. 34 days 270 days ---
23. the stationary point which is at equal distance, is at a distance from the Sun
24. 265 of the Sun, extend the distance
25. 265 of the Sun, has extended four and one seventh
26. 8 days --- of the origin --- dawn
27. interval (or separation, length, distance; greek: diastasin) large days
28. twelfth part of the circle (greek: dodecatemorios) --- subtract the remaining (genre is
feminine)
29. from the evening --- and the remaining
30. in time --- days
31. brings on the Sun the stationary point
32. days 31 is leading days
33. of the rising is the Sun 40 days
34. day is becoming the
35. 205 days days from
36: ---
37: ---
Conventions used:
--- : either unreadable, or non-translatable string
: enclosing either dubious characters or one amongst many reading choices (e.g. either
number or beginning of word)
[ ] : enclosing restored sections
? : uncertain character
( ) : alternative translation, indication of greek word translated or (if in italics) comment from
reader-translator.
Table 2. Provisional Translation of the Back Door Inscriptions
1. this
2. ---
3. and under the
4. vc white skin
5. feral cat
6. non-homo milk
7. long live Steve I
8. ---
9. (of the) extremity
10. ---
11. ---
12. ---
13. ---
14. [and is carrying] little [golden] sphere
15. the pointer that protrudes from it
16. carries, of which the next one
17. which is carried through (or the other carried by it)
18. of Venus
19. ---
20. on the [extremity of] the pointer stands a little golden sphere (golden or goldish)
21. the ray [towards the] Sun and above, the Sun is ---
22. --- when it moves through (through its orbit; greek: diaporevomenon)
23. --- and the moving through (same meaning as in line 22)
24. --- circle and the little sphere
25. stands --- the [sphere] of the world (world in greek:cosmos)
26. --- elements ---
27. ---
28. ---
29. the spiral divided in 235 sectors
30. and days to be excluded 2? (twenty to twenty-nine; "œexcluded"� means "œtaken out of the
calendar"�)
31. --- two trunnions (greek: stematia) around gear (greek: tympanon)
32. --- perforated trunnions (possibly pre-perforated)
33. through the perforations to be pulled (haul)
34. the same manner as
35. ---
36. ---
37. ---
38. ---
39. ---
40. ---
41. from where it came out of
42. the first position
43. two pointers, whose ends carry
44. four, the one indicates
45. the 76 years, 19 years of the
46. 223 coming together
47. so that the whole will be divided
48. (of the) ecliptic
49. similar to those on the
50. carries
51. ---
No translation of the Back Plate Inscriptions, near the Lower Back Dial is attempted, as the
text is rather incomplete. Work is in progress.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted by Admins]

[Aught Six]

Yes, another great invention from the Greeks. Homosexuality,phalanx warfare, and primitive clocks...

[Buster T]

Homosexuality - you think they "invented" that ? LOL