For anyone interested, the youtuber/clock maker Clickspring has an amazing series where he recreates a working model from scratch while also going into its history, recent discoveries, possible ways it was created at such precision at the time, and iirc made some discoveries himself that ended up in a peer reviewed study. Pretty fascinating stuff, and extremely satisfying videos! Great interview as ever, keep up the good work John!
It slightly boggles my mind there wasn't more fanfare of him making the device with experimental methods trying to be historically accurate and a large chunk entirely by hand. I would have expected it to go on tour around the world and be shown in exhibitions, but as far as I can tell it's just quietly gone away and just sits as a collection off TH-cam video's.
I was wondering if this has been accurately reproduced and if I could convince them to produce a permanent magnet pendulum clock and permanent magnet motor clock..
I love how John and crew just let their guest talk, for over half of the episode. I am here for your amazing guests, their stories, and the good questions John asks. Good show.
Amazing! So, I have a few questions and thoughts: 1. How the beep did they "machine" or fashion the gears? 2. How did they write letters that were 1.6 to 2 mm high? 3. Did they have magnifying devices to see these letters while writing? 4. How did they read them? much better eyesight than mine or - again, magnifying devices? 5. There was a mention of a 1 mm offset between centers of spindles to get to the last cycle of the moon as described in the video. How do you manage such critical tolerances in a manufacturing process that predates current robust mechanical/automated manufacturing? 6. So, you manufactured one of the sixty odd gears (I hope my memory serves me right) - how did they verify that the gear was to spec? 7. Specification! How did they specify and draw out the device for the manufacturing team to follow - let alone design it! 8. How many discards did they have before they got a correctly working piece? 9. So, who did the QA on the device and when? One of the cycles was 19 years! So did they wait for that period (or an average of 9.5 years) to test that functionality? One can go on... So many questions and thoughts. Thank you for this detailed description.
Some answers (These answers are my own view). . . 1) Simple tools fashioned to be filing kits. They then would cut out perfect circles from 1/8 inch thick bronze plate. As for where to cut, Clickspring does a good explainer on his second channel I believe. 2) Solder. Most glyphs and characters of the mechanism (+3,000 characters - 2019 Tony Freeth) were sculpted out of the plating, however the few above characters above the plating, were made from solder. 3) The Greeks made small bottles by winding threads of molten glass onto a core of clay mixed with manure. Blacksmiths and craftsmen alike would manufacture glass designed to magnify. 4) Eye sight - Unless you were a Roman, than you might need a translator from Greek to Latin. 5) I don't know the right answer to this. My own view is too cut precise and lightly sand until tolerance is achieved. 6) The gear is the right 'spec' when the gear has the right Module (Gear Tooth Count / Gear Diameter). Again, Clickspring's second channel goes through how they could have found this. The total number of gears: depends who you ask: Freeth, Wright, Price, C. Carman. By my count: 54 (2 Lunar Gears as per Freeth - Private Communication - Sorry :( C.Carman). 7) The Ancient Greek crafts were very Very competitive. Greek neighbours wanted to own the better version of whatever their neighbour owned. Ancient Greek crafters would obtain a version of the Mechanism, and replicate it with improvements. They'd then pass on these improvements to their apprentice, and the cycle repeats. 8) It's hard to say how much discard there was when the mechanism was in its initial construction. However, they used Bronze plating which there was an no shortage of. In it's refinement and cleaner manufacturing process, the discard would be to the minimal. 9) This question does make me smile. No, short answer. The craftsmen would set the dial to the beginning of the 19 year cycle, and wind it forward to the current date and would see if everything lined up. I've been researching the mechanism for several months for my own reconstruction for a Fully 3D printable Mechanism that anyone could print. I also know why Freeth didn't mention Clickspring but you didn't ask that question 0.0
@@sottyify Don’t tease like that - why didn’t Freethe mention Clickspring? Haha. Also, Freethe mentioned that a working model can’t be done yet until one thing he’s working on is figured out, but he couldn’t say what it was yet since he’s in the middle of that research. Do you happen to know if anything has come of that specific research since this video was recorded, and what he was referring to exactly!
I could listen to this man talk about this for days. Really fascinating subject and a really wonderful orator. Thanks for letting the man speak, John, you really are a top, top notch interviewer.
I'm busy writing a novel with this as one of the MacGuffins. Apparently Indiana Jones 5 took an interest in it too, the difference is that I've done my research and made a story that's rather close to the truth and close to what people would expect from an Indiana Jones type story.... Disney..... yeah from what I heard, they pretty much fucked up with it, modern tinseltown style. Such a pity, coz there is a really fascinating story to tell, I know, coz I've written it. Just need to polish some dialogue and certain scenes, but the overall story is finished, think I'm on draft 7 now, with continuous improvements on it.
@@stijnvdv2 screw Hollywood, if you've got a great story to tell, then tell it. Good writing will stand on its own regardless of what other people do. Best of luck in your endeavors.
@@BriarLeaf00 it’s all total bogus. None of these things have every been proven scientifically. The truth is that Christ sacrificed himself for your sins & was sent to earth to cleanse mankind of all sin & evil, all that’s required is you repent to Christ & accept as Lord & savior
@@macysondheim right.... 🙄 the psychology of ideologies and cults is no doubt fascinating, just as with the (in my opinion mentally ill) woke people. But that's not the topic of conversation here.
@@a.j.infowars7582 If listening to a wise grandfather telling you an ancient epic is your thing, I have two words: Irving Finkel... (Are you an Infowars staffer or just a fan? I used to work with AJ back in the Sacred Cow/ACTV days...)
Antikythera Mechanism I think is one of the greatest discoveries in archeology maybe ever. Only certain events could be higher, like the discovery of Tutankhamen tomb or finding the burial complex of the 1st Emperor of China or the ancient structure of Göbekli Tepe. But for me this Mechanism blows me away.. just the questions it brings up intrigue me too no end. Who made it? How many were around in ancient times. How old is this device really, could it be a design 100's or even 1000 years older than its determined age. Was this some one off Genius creation by some master craftsman or was this a ancient design passed on through the ages. This level of technology is 1000's of years ahead of established understanding.. I wish it was talked about more. Some experts seem to dismiss it, cause we never found any other devices like it or even similar kinds of evidence. The fact it's only one of it's kind ever found is absolutely insane. It generates so many questions in my mind, it basically rewrites how we envision people of those ancient times. How many other inventions of that time have we never seen?
It's all in the mathematics... But without knowing the cycles then the formula could not be created.. There wasone point mentioned which give a clue to the date.. The accuracy calculated is not as precise as today.. What calculations amd how inaccurate? This will should be able to be picked up via Pi.
I watched the full Stanford presentation on this device and it was absolutely incredible. Very technical and difficult to understand, but still very much worth the watch. TH-cam does a good job of recommending the video so you should be able to find it.
Akin to sitting down (hypothetically) someone from two thousand years ago In front of a laptop or a smart phone. Them let them figure out what in the world it was used for or the base meaning for its existence.
A remarkable explanation of the history and function of what is probably the most important object we have from the ancient world. Dr. Freeth, who made many of the crucial discoveries about this object, gives simple, user-friendly explanations. I highly recommend his two papers in Nature, which are easy for non-scientists to understand, and which convey the intellectual excitement that surrounded this work. Best of all, Dr. Freeth credits the many contributions made by others in this amazing story. The best 53 minutes I've spent in a long time.
Some time in the 1990s I was on holiday near Athens. I went to visit the NAM in Athens and find the Mechanism before the Mechanism had been decoded. I think IBM had taken a look at it and done some X-Rays but it was displayed in a corner surrounded by many vases which seemed to be presented as more important than something with gears in it.. I am glad I have seen it for real.
Well, they made a few mistakes. For instance, there's no user manual, and no customer support. They don't even have a Web site with a faq! The main problem with giving them credit, though, is that they forgot to sign the bloody piece. There isn't even a company logo! I'm not entirely joking. Respect needs an object; something to be respected. We can admire their work, and respect their skill, but we can't respect them, because we don't know who they are. They may have been OK with that, though. I'm getting a serious nerd vibe from this mechanism, so they might have preferred to shut themselves into their workshop and avoid attention.
This is caused by the myopic tendency of some people to think technological and cultural advancement is somehow linear when history clearly shows that is quite far from the historical trend. The people who made such were absolute experts at their trades back then and you'd need to look hard to find modern engineers who could build similar complexity devices leveled to our current tech base. They exist for sure but it's likely a smaller share than we'd care to admit.
Great video and it would make a lot more sense to viewers when they understand the earth is a circular flat topographical plane with Polaris directly over the center and the luminaries rotate in a circle over this circular flat topographical plane. The Antikythera mechanism is a demonstration device and it represents what the luminaries are actually doing circling over the Earth around Polaris. That's why it can predict the movements is because it's actually reproducing the movements.
Amazing! Incredible! Outstanding episode John! As someone who used to believe a decade ago that ancient alien made this device and gave it to ancient humans, listening to an actual expert explain his discoveries about this Incredible HUMAN-MADE device almost brought tears to my eyes... We humans are unbelievably clever given enough time and resources! We built our current global civilization on the shoulders of giants and we have to make sure we can be the next giants for our descendants to stand on!
So how did they build such a precision device in that early time? Your original deduction is more realistic. Not made by humans... with the level of technology required to create such a device it seems obvious this was not man made back then. What other conclusion is there? 1mm precision back then???
We stand on the shoulders of giants and the signal issue of our times is whether to allow our governments to sexually mutilate children. Thank goodness for videos like this.
oh well there's tonights video sorted... Just spent 2 hours listening to a breakdown of how they figured this out - this will be a great follow on, thank you GMD - been watching for years
This was another incredible episode. I learned so much, having known very little about this topic before. I am in awe of the craftsmanship, design work and attention to scientific detail that the Greeks put into this mechanism. I don't need people telling me that aliens built the pyramids etc - our ancestors were capable of incredible feats of engineering all on their own by putting in a lot of thought and hard, skilled work. Dr Freeth spoke very well and is obviously passionate about his subject.
The Antikythera mechanism was WAY ahead of its time no matter how you look at it! Gears are generally thought to have been invented during the medieval period, but here we have a set of gears from Antiquity!
Not only a set of gears but an incredibly small and precise set some with teeth only 1.6mm long! Contrast this with the crude gearings of medieval times!
I saw it when even through the National Archeological Museum. I called my wife over and said "look it's the Antikythera mechanism!" She said, "Uh, Ok...." But to her credit, she pretended to be excited after she saw I was hyped up about seeing it.😂😂
@@ulfhedtyrsson I know. My post makes it sound like she's a dummy. But I was just letting folks know that's not the case. It's that our interests are not 100% aligned
@@baarbacoa You might find this fact interesting: medicine, by the Ancient Greeks, was considered an "art" while MUSIC was considered a science! Their "ascending scale of Knowledge" was: Arithmetic, Geometry, Stereometry, Music, Astronomy. This is why ALL Greeks (including children and women) had to learn Music! They were also taught to love LIFE, conquer their fear of Death and do NOT expect life "after death" (unless they became heroes-serving Humanity-then Gods might grand them IMMORTALITY) and to always look at the stars at night, because "that's where the Greeks came from"!
Imagine the Bell Curve. Draw a line at the right most limit, near the 2% line. That's the limited audience that would find this interesting. Everyone else is arguing Trump vs. Harris, and twerking.
Î am fascinated by this and the fact that the ancient Greeks built such a machine. It only proves that my old obsession with ancient Greece is not that crazy.
@@johnhickey6114 No doubt about it. In our world they would be. If it could be done, my fondest wish would be to go back in time and observe them in 'their' world as an alien myself.
keep in mind that ancient people took omens very seriously and the cosmos was a great source of omens... so if you're an emperor, or a general or a city-planner, or some high level decision-maker, a computer that can track major omens in the cosmos with a high degree of accuracy could potentially be a priceless asset. important to consider these things through what we know about people's worldview at the time.
Well...maybe. Much of what we know about ancient culture and the educated people of the time is just made up by archeologists to fit a convenient theory that shows history is completely linear and that we are the end all and be all and everything great about homo sapiens. Much of history is just fantasy created to explain ancient cultures that doesn't upset the pet theories of the status quo. Archeology is not much of a science...its more of a philosophy created in the humanities.
There's a video here on youtube of someone recreating the Antikythera mechanism. Took him something like 18 months with modern machines. I can only imagine how many years this must have taken to make in Ancient Greece.
I love these videos to watch before sleep. I'm thinking about what's being said until my brain slowly switching to dream, and those dreams are trippy as hell. And I basically must watch one video 3-4 times until I get to the end of it 😄
Literally me!! This channel and Isaac Arthur are about the only way I get to sleep! Anton Petrov is great too but his videos usually aren't long enough.
The Greeks made some incredible mechanism all those years ago. Nowadays, they make incredible souvlaki pitta wraps - you know, the ones with the chips and white sauce😋
Its a device which was used for making Astrological predictions of when things will happen in people's life, to the country and society in general. The only branch of study which require this detailed knowledge of the position of planets for the betterment of people and society is Astrology!! This is a powerful device for the ancient Greek astrologers who needed the position of moon, planets and eclipses for making astrological predictions
Another big thing people are missing with this device is how they were able to strategically place so many gears into such a small device and have it operate smoothly without binding up.
Your guest is a.great fast thinking speaker. If you were to print out and read all of of his dialogue,it would be a perfect script for a documentary his study of the previous people studying the mechanism and the origin of the discovery are ingrained in his contiousness and the way he keeps me glued to this episode even though I have heard most of these facts previously after viewing every TH-cam channel I could find on the subject. Personally I would like to see individual photos of everything found from the shipwreck
I wanted accurate subtitles because some of his words were not completely enunciated. Several times I had to rewind and re-listen, and a few of those attempts did not result in clarity. My concern is that this man, and others like him, could keel over dead 10 minutes after the interview, and taking with them all their knowledge that should have been recorded. We're in the middle of a struggle to rediscover history, while simultaneously failing to record our own to a degree that our descendants might regard as foolish, and stupid. There isn't one single detail of this man's life experience that does not have value, even if he is (in his own words) "wrong". Knowing what WRONG is, is called PROGRESS. They should install a microchip on his body and record his every utterance for the rest of his life, to be stored in a great online repository.
Such a fan of Tony Freeth! Michael Wright's working models are pretty incredible; he's the quintessential eccentric English, garden shed engineer/inventor. This was a fantastic listen! When was this interview recorded; close to 2 June 2023, or earlier?
The discovery of devices like this just make one wonder what other great knowledge was lost and forgotten . Imagine if these sort of this were never lost
I mean they took the pyramid cap stones off to build a city. People are too lazy to cut the stone, mine the metal themselves so we are recyclers. I feel like a lot of humans are good at reconstituting objects to achieve a goal, maybe it's because we have been doing it so long.
@@captainhakob814 Describing ancients as lazy recyclers is very accurate and very true, at least from our perspective. From their perspective it was just practical and efficient. The immediate needs almost always outweigh the future needs, both then and now. Only the perspective changes.
No love for Chris from Clickspring? I mean his reconstruction might be as flawed as others from a theoretical point of view but it's probably the most advanced from a manufacturing perspective and we _are_ on TH-cam after all.
Having an interest in design, I personally think the most interesting part of this is the development phase that went into creating it. I mean how many steps of more simple mechanisms went before it? Was it possible to be a one off creation? I doubt it, was this a top line model of a more common device? We'll never know but I think its intriguing.
The Enigma machine, and the Antikythera mechanism Are two of my favorite devices, one from antiquity, and the other from recent history (I have apps for both on my iPhone). Thanks for this great interview.
it's amazing also that with everything we have, the decades of work etc... we still haven't completely figured it out yet or have a complete working model. so intriguing
The device is anchored upon this ratio, 1445 * (7007/12) / 365.2422 1445 : 2310 Venus Synodic Cycles : Earth Years 7007/12 = 583.917 days Precisely 12 phases of Venus in 7007 days on Earth.
This is absolutely amazing. It very hard for us to understand this device because we don't really now how much the ancient people new. This device shows the knowledge of these people more than the written history does.
I feel that was not the only one.. As they said it seemed the ship was full of cargo thst seemed higher value thus carrying things important. My thought is it was made for 1. Was to track stars, moon and planets and the cycles. I believe the other reason was for agriculture. Used to know when was best to plant crops and such. I would bet they were more made just for that reason. Maybe to trade or sell to ther regions and countries to use to have successful the best chance agriculturaly for success..
On the topic of why they made the Antikythera Mechanism, but not simpler things like clocks: Just because they could make the Antikythera Mechanism doesn't mean a clock would be easy. Why go through the intense effort of manufacturing something that tells the time? The average pleb at the time probably just looked at where the sun was in the sky and said "yeah, it's about dusk." That was all the timekeeping they needed. If they really wanted something more accurate, even a sundial would be infinitely more easier and reasonable to make. So why the Antikythera Mechanism? I think because it literally tracks the movement of The Heavens... Of the Gods... It basically calculated divine knowledge. Might as well make at least one of these both for it's potential practical purposes and as a tribute to The Gods it keeps track of.
The thing about clocks is that they had them. The Greco-Roman world had really elaborate water clocks, some even self-correcting to a degree, so the concept was there. It just appeared that they hadn't made the leap to the job of the water being done through a wound metal spring. They may not have had springs, but It might also just have been a matter that they did actually know to do that, but these mechanisms were so expensive to construct at the time that no one bit when the water clocks and sun dials were good enough.
As a Greek guy who has tried to read some of the transcribed text on the machine (and understands most of the words), it looks like a user's manual that was printed right on top of the device. Many words are missing of course, but in general I think it's trying to explain to the user what the outputs mean. That's probably the reason for the small text, they just had to fit all those words there. I just find that very interesting, because if that's true it means that the device was made for laymen, it wasn't a device that was shared between scientists in academies. Probably government officials or farmers or just rich people who wanted a cool gadget and didn't understand/weren't interested in learning how it works, they just wanted to be able to read it.
I think you’ve understood it exactly. A device that could be use to predict in advance when the gods would smile or frown could have led to success or failure of human enterprise under the polytheistic belief system of astronomical signs. Wealthy men and kings would pay a fortune to accurately ensure that fate smiled upon risky endeavors. Whoever could establish himself as a guarantor of heavenly signs would be a most trusted advisor, or a proven analog computing device might do so without the chance of subterfuge. No disruption of space-time continuum required.
31:30 - It's so humbling looking back at our ancestors from more than two millennia, and knowing that they were just as ingenious and curious in understanding their world as we are, despite their lack of knowledge and technology.
I would strongly suggest, that if a device like this was found through archaeology, then it was much more common than we think. The chance of discovering an already rare object at the time of its original construction, thousands of years later throudh excavation is astronomically small. The time is just such an immensly destructive and devastating force... sooo little survives the mistress of the universes steady work.
What a pity they haven't incorporated THE latest, DEFINITIVE research ... absolutely PROVING BEYOND ANY DOUBT ... that, in fact, it has NOTHING to do with Eclipses, Tides, Moons, Supernovae, Alien Visitations, and so on! IN FACT it is ALL to do with predicting how "Succession" will end! Each character has a gear wheel sized according to their status ... and pegs/rotors/levers are moved in accordance to Logan's moods, etc. I snuck into the Museum and entered ALL the correct info and ... VOILA! ... "Tom to be CEO; Greg as Eminence Gris-in-training; Shiv with TRIPLETS ... training up THE NEXT GEN of dysfunctional billionaire family!!!"
Look for ancient jewellery and religious icons that have over engineered parts that look like gears and you may find repurposed parts of a broken mechanism.
Dr. Freeth is probably underestimating several things. We are often inclined to trust our knowledge, rather consider it potential limitations. In English composition classes, we are told to employ short declarative sentences, that carry more certainty than we are really justified in holding. Evidence from recent discoveries of Archimedes's mathematics text show that he was well on the way toward a functional alternative to a calculus. Roman surveying instruments are commonly depicted as very simple, devises. But they were apparently not common, the Romans also had sophisticated devices comparable to a plane table that could be used for precise mapping, and which even employed finely threaded adjustment screws. Pre-Christian technology was well developed, but . . . a Roman soldier killed Archimedes in his bath. Roman society was politically unstable, sadly corrupt, and slid into the Dark Ages, forgetting much of what was known, while ignorant religious types erased irreplaceable texts in order copy religious drivel, not even original religious drivel. What happened was a political collapse accompanied by an expansion of religious dogma and Church domination that lasted for over 500 years.
Very interesting story. 2 questions suggest themselves a) there must have been prr-cursor devices. Such as a device that only tracked, predicted the position of only the moon. The Antikythera mechanism is too complex to beba 1st attempt. Do we have any research or evidence of earlier such devices? B) does the availability of 3-D printing make it feasible to construct the gear and experiment with how the device works?
Technology like this must have taken generations upon generations to mature. Ignoring what they might have used this device for, there almost had to be various sorts of complex gear devices being used by relatively wealthy people.
Yes, you would certainly think so. They didn’t just suddenly create a device like this… without any predecessor. Even if those earlier examples of this technology are out there somewhere waiting to be discovered, the creator of this one had to be an absolute genius. It’s fascinating to think about.
That is certainly the suspicion of many historians but the lack of evidence prevents speculation. But I mean when one looks at the relative sophistication of the greco roman world, its almost unavoidable. Its like all the other books from antiquity mentioned only in passing. Happens all the time. A good example for the anglo world is like if Shakespeare whole saved body of work would be A Midsummer Night's Dream, but in passing by other peoples writing you hear there were other works like Hamlet or Macbeth. Probably masterpieces but who knows.
@@Atrahasis7 Yeah it has been noted however that because its bronze once any tool or other artifact is no longer needed/useful they generally remelted it down because bronze was very valuable. Thus the absence of such artifacts outside of things lost at sea or burial isn't that surprising either.
I’m an idiot in denial… I claim to be well read concerning the Greeks and Roman’s and history in general… but for the recent ads for Harrison fords upcoming movie? I’ve never heard of this device nor it’s discovery! Thanks for uploading.
The core question missing from this conversation is motive. Within the cultural context of the ancient world why would the ability to predict future cycles and movements of the moon and planets, eclipses and other astronomical events matter enough to invest the considerable resources required to design and build a machine capable of calculating and making these astronomical forecasts with such precision? It seems to me that astrology, pantheistic religion, and the prevalent belief in mystical omens and prophesy was of very great importance to the ancients. The ability to predict when an eclipse will next happen or when the moon with it's seemingly variable pace of movement through the sky would next be in a particular house of the zodiac were of great importance to all sorts of administrative decisions, war strategy, and pretty much any other project planning that the ancients might want to undertake. If I'm right about this, then the Antikythera Mechanism is a remarkable artifact in so far as it employed very sophisticated mathematics, scientific observations, and technological skill in the service of what was ultimately a mystical end goal or purpose of assisting augury and oracular prophesy. The mechanism was probably a sacred object of the priests of some temple, something secretly consulted before they would pronounce an answer to a question put to their oracle. The shipwreck it was found on sounds like it was probably a treasure ship filled with looted spoils of war, and a sacred object capable of predicting the movements of the heavens would certainly be considered a great treasure in the ancient world.
A few years back I purchased as partially working full scale model of this device from a museum (Kotsanas Museum) in Greece for 550 Euros (2019). It is based on models predating 2005 (Freeth et al). This is a nice model but a bit pricey.
43:00 The thing that really held back technology in the classical world was slavery. The steam engine toy invented at the time could have been employed as a labor saving device, but who cares about labor savings when you have slaves? You aren't engaged in labor yourself, and so you would never see better ways to do the work. The slaves might, but they had no power to effect change.
Mechanical clocks didn't arise until there was a need for them. Accurate clocks were needed for global navigation, but that didn't occur until many centuries after the classical Greeks. Also Rome wanted a way to put the whole world on schedule, for which they also needed clocks. Thus the Greeks, without a real need for clocks, didn't invent them. Moreover their centuries of celestial observation could tell them what "time" it was at any point in the day. Just look at the sky.
An hour long discussion of an ancient device designed to predict relative positions of celestial objects, about a third of which was dedicated to speculating about what it may have been for, and the word "astrology" wasn't even mentioned. Well, if one follows Occam's razor, a rich ancient Roman dude would want to know where the planets will be in the future for precisely one reason, to have their personal horoscope cast. Saying that the device's purpose was to do trigonometry is not answering to what purpose would the ancients need to be able to do trigonometry. It's not a mystery that astrology and astronomy were not only not separated back then, but that astrology (as in the promise of meaningfully predicting future outcomes for people) provided the motivation to advance in astronomy, and for the rich dudes to fund it. The planets were literally gods to the ancients, for Zeus's/Jupiter's sake. I mean, maybe there's a chance that this common sense, mainstream history, and principle of parsimony-based supposition is wrong, but how has no researcher studying this thing even commented on that, or even used the word "astrology"? Sorry for the rant, but I have just published a book about modern astrology-related research and this type of stuff borders on skeptical (self?)censorship. Or I guess a giant gaping blind spot in the education of modern mathematicians, physicists, engineers, astronomers, and the like.
That explains the mechanism but how did it work in practice. How did they set it up, was it continuous or could the set up with reference to stars and moon. Sorry if discussed, at gym whilst watching and sometimes I have to focus on exercise. But what an excellent way to enjoy exercise by listening to one of my favourite podcast.
This us a great video on a facinating device. The questions it creates and some of answers are startling. I hope Xtech, not sure of the spelling, is doing well. They pursued an expensive project when most businesses would have been more concerned with existence.
I love that we are periodically and subliminally reminded that we live on a big rotating sphere. Is it because this machine along with the astrolabe is based on a stationary earth?
It was an Astrologer's instrument. Unfortunately, it's a sin to dare admit that those mathematicians who were also studying astronomy in ancient times, did so for astrological purposes of interpretation. Fortunately, there are original source texts available these days, translations by Dr. Benjamin Dykes recommended, that elucidate the gross underestimation of the depth of astrological practice, at present, while also highlighting elite academic prejudice and the profound overestimation of the adequacy of a purely physics-based model of perceived reality.
For anyone interested, the youtuber/clock maker Clickspring has an amazing series where he recreates a working model from scratch while also going into its history, recent discoveries, possible ways it was created at such precision at the time, and iirc made some discoveries himself that ended up in a peer reviewed study. Pretty fascinating stuff, and extremely satisfying videos! Great interview as ever, keep up the good work John!
Was gonna suggest this and i am glad I was beat to it. I tip my hat to you... and Clickspring
Clickspring did a beautiful job.
It slightly boggles my mind there wasn't more fanfare of him making the device with experimental methods trying to be historically accurate and a large chunk entirely by hand.
I would have expected it to go on tour around the world and be shown in exhibitions, but as far as I can tell it's just quietly gone away and just sits as a collection off TH-cam video's.
Came here to shout out click spring
I was wondering if this has been accurately reproduced and if I could convince them to produce a permanent magnet pendulum clock and permanent magnet motor clock..
I love how John and crew just let their guest talk, for over half of the episode.
I am here for your amazing guests, their stories, and the good questions John asks.
Good show.
A rare trait in a largely narcissistic society...
I wonder how it would be if Neil DT was on, would John even get a sentence in? 😂
@@Njkk500 neil tyson is dipshit. He is to science, what kenneth coplan is to religion.
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Amazing! So, I have a few questions and thoughts:
1. How the beep did they "machine" or fashion the gears?
2. How did they write letters that were 1.6 to 2 mm high?
3. Did they have magnifying devices to see these letters while writing?
4. How did they read them? much better eyesight than mine or - again, magnifying devices?
5. There was a mention of a 1 mm offset between centers of spindles to get to the last cycle of the moon as described in the video. How do you manage such critical tolerances in a manufacturing process that predates current robust mechanical/automated manufacturing?
6. So, you manufactured one of the sixty odd gears (I hope my memory serves me right) - how did they verify that the gear was to spec?
7. Specification! How did they specify and draw out the device for the manufacturing team to follow - let alone design it!
8. How many discards did they have before they got a correctly working piece?
9. So, who did the QA on the device and when? One of the cycles was 19 years! So did they wait for that period (or an average of 9.5 years) to test that functionality?
One can go on... So many questions and thoughts.
Thank you for this detailed description.
Some answers (These answers are my own view). . .
1) Simple tools fashioned to be filing kits. They then would cut out perfect circles from 1/8 inch thick bronze plate. As for where to cut, Clickspring does a good explainer on his second channel I believe.
2) Solder. Most glyphs and characters of the mechanism (+3,000 characters - 2019 Tony Freeth) were sculpted out of the plating, however the few above characters above the plating, were made from solder.
3) The Greeks made small bottles by winding threads of molten glass onto a core of clay mixed with manure. Blacksmiths and craftsmen alike would manufacture glass designed to magnify.
4) Eye sight - Unless you were a Roman, than you might need a translator from Greek to Latin.
5) I don't know the right answer to this. My own view is too cut precise and lightly sand until tolerance is achieved.
6) The gear is the right 'spec' when the gear has the right Module (Gear Tooth Count / Gear Diameter). Again, Clickspring's second channel goes through how they could have found this. The total number of gears: depends who you ask: Freeth, Wright, Price, C. Carman. By my count: 54 (2 Lunar Gears as per Freeth - Private Communication - Sorry :( C.Carman).
7) The Ancient Greek crafts were very Very competitive. Greek neighbours wanted to own the better version of whatever their neighbour owned. Ancient Greek crafters would obtain a version of the Mechanism, and replicate it with improvements. They'd then pass on these improvements to their apprentice, and the cycle repeats.
8) It's hard to say how much discard there was when the mechanism was in its initial construction. However, they used Bronze plating which there was an no shortage of. In it's refinement and cleaner manufacturing process, the discard would be to the minimal.
9) This question does make me smile. No, short answer. The craftsmen would set the dial to the beginning of the 19 year cycle, and wind it forward to the current date and would see if everything lined up.
I've been researching the mechanism for several months for my own reconstruction for a Fully 3D printable Mechanism that anyone could print. I also know why Freeth didn't mention Clickspring but you didn't ask that question 0.0
@@sottyify thanks
@traybern yes, also the hardness of the cutting tool would have to be high. This means having a good experience with metallurgy.
written by someone who has never made anything with their hands @@sottyify
@@sottyify
Don’t tease like that - why didn’t Freethe mention Clickspring? Haha.
Also, Freethe mentioned that a working model can’t be done yet until one thing he’s working on is figured out, but he couldn’t say what it was yet since he’s in the middle of that research. Do you happen to know if anything has come of that specific research since this video was recorded, and what he was referring to exactly!
I could listen to this man talk about this for days. Really fascinating subject and a really wonderful orator. Thanks for letting the man speak, John, you really are a top, top notch interviewer.
I'm busy writing a novel with this as one of the MacGuffins. Apparently Indiana Jones 5 took an interest in it too, the difference is that I've done my research and made a story that's rather close to the truth and close to what people would expect from an Indiana Jones type story.... Disney..... yeah from what I heard, they pretty much fucked up with it, modern tinseltown style. Such a pity, coz there is a really fascinating story to tell, I know, coz I've written it. Just need to polish some dialogue and certain scenes, but the overall story is finished, think I'm on draft 7 now, with continuous improvements on it.
@@stijnvdv2 screw Hollywood, if you've got a great story to tell, then tell it. Good writing will stand on its own regardless of what other people do. Best of luck in your endeavors.
@@BriarLeaf00 it’s all total bogus. None of these things have every been proven scientifically. The truth is that Christ sacrificed himself for your sins & was sent to earth to cleanse mankind of all sin & evil, all that’s required is you repent to Christ & accept as Lord & savior
@@macysondheim right.... 🙄 the psychology of ideologies and cults is no doubt fascinating, just as with the (in my opinion mentally ill) woke people. But that's not the topic of conversation here.
@@macysondheim Lololol
The guest's voice is absolutely fantastic! It's like listening to a wise grandfather telling you an ancient epic! 😁
Or a very well read Pirate. I’d buy the audio book of Treasure Island if this man read it.
That’s why I listened to the whole thing ❤️
@@a.j.infowars7582 If listening to a wise grandfather telling you an ancient epic is your thing, I have two words: Irving Finkel...
(Are you an Infowars staffer or just a fan? I used to work with AJ back in the Sacred Cow/ACTV days...)
@@kenlieck7756 thanks cool man, I love AJ & Infowars. I’m just a fan.
Antikythera Mechanism I think is one of the greatest discoveries in archeology maybe ever. Only certain events could be higher, like the discovery of Tutankhamen tomb or finding the burial complex of the 1st Emperor of China or the ancient structure of Göbekli Tepe. But for me this Mechanism blows me away.. just the questions it brings up intrigue me too no end.
Who made it? How many were around in ancient times. How old is this device really, could it be a design 100's or even 1000 years older than its determined age. Was this some one off Genius creation by some master craftsman or was this a ancient design passed on through the ages. This level of technology is 1000's of years ahead of established understanding.. I wish it was talked about more. Some experts seem to dismiss it, cause we never found any other devices like it or even similar kinds of evidence. The fact it's only one of it's kind ever found is absolutely insane.
It generates so many questions in my mind, it basically rewrites how we envision people of those ancient times. How many other inventions of that time have we never seen?
Check 27:50 for possible construction dates.
Our history is an estimate @ best we forget more than we remember, HUMANS ARE DESIGNED TO FORGET WHAT THEY CANNOT UNDERSTAND. Understanding
The advanced technology was lost during a cataclysmic event.
It's all in the mathematics... But without knowing the cycles then the formula could not be created.. There wasone point mentioned which give a clue to the date.. The accuracy calculated is not as precise as today.. What calculations amd how inaccurate? This will should be able to be picked up via Pi.
@@a.j.infowars7582 "The advanced technology was lost during a cataclysmic event."
No it wasn't.
I watched the full Stanford presentation on this device and it was absolutely incredible. Very technical and difficult to understand, but still very much worth the watch. TH-cam does a good job of recommending the video so you should be able to find it.
Akin to sitting down (hypothetically) someone from two thousand years ago
In front of a laptop or a smart phone. Them let them figure out what in the world it was used for or the base meaning for its existence.
A remarkable explanation of the history and function of what is probably the most important object we have from the ancient world. Dr. Freeth, who made many of the crucial discoveries about this object, gives simple, user-friendly explanations. I highly recommend his two papers in Nature, which are easy for non-scientists to understand, and which convey the intellectual excitement that surrounded this work. Best of all, Dr. Freeth credits the many contributions made by others in this amazing story. The best 53 minutes I've spent in a long time.
Agreed. Same sentiment.
Some time in the 1990s I was on holiday near Athens. I went to visit the NAM in Athens and find the Mechanism before the Mechanism had been decoded. I think IBM had taken a look at it and done some X-Rays but it was displayed in a corner surrounded by many vases which seemed to be presented as more important than something with gears in it.. I am glad I have seen it for real.
The Scientists and Engineers that built this device 2200 years ago were incredible, and they don't get enough respect.
Well, they made a few mistakes. For instance, there's no user manual, and no customer support. They don't even have a Web site with a faq! The main problem with giving them credit, though, is that they forgot to sign the bloody piece. There isn't even a company logo!
I'm not entirely joking. Respect needs an object; something to be respected. We can admire their work, and respect their skill, but we can't respect them, because we don't know who they are. They may have been OK with that, though. I'm getting a serious nerd vibe from this mechanism, so they might have preferred to shut themselves into their workshop and avoid attention.
They were black 😂😂😂😂
@@CharlieBrown-zr9wk They were Greek...
They had help
This is caused by the myopic tendency of some people to think technological and cultural advancement is somehow linear when history clearly shows that is quite far from the historical trend. The people who made such were absolute experts at their trades back then and you'd need to look hard to find modern engineers who could build similar complexity devices leveled to our current tech base. They exist for sure but it's likely a smaller share than we'd care to admit.
Great video and it would make a lot more sense to viewers when they understand the earth is a circular flat topographical plane with Polaris directly over the center and the luminaries rotate in a circle over this circular flat topographical plane. The Antikythera mechanism is a demonstration device and it represents what the luminaries are actually doing circling over the Earth around Polaris. That's why it can predict the movements is because it's actually reproducing the movements.
Amazing! Incredible! Outstanding episode John!
As someone who used to believe a decade ago that ancient alien made this device and gave it to ancient humans, listening to an actual expert explain his discoveries about this Incredible HUMAN-MADE device almost brought tears to my eyes...
We humans are unbelievably clever given enough time and resources! We built our current global civilization on the shoulders of giants and we have to make sure we can be the next giants for our descendants to stand on!
I'm glad you're no longer so silly to think that aliens have contacted humans.
So how did they build such a precision device in that early time?
Your original deduction is more realistic.
Not made by humans...
with the level of technology required to create such a device it seems obvious this was not man made back then.
What other conclusion is there?
1mm precision back then???
We stand on the shoulders of giants and the signal issue of our times is whether to allow our governments to sexually mutilate children. Thank goodness for videos like this.
oh well there's tonights video sorted... Just spent 2 hours listening to a breakdown of how they figured this out - this will be a great follow on, thank you GMD - been watching for years
This was another incredible episode. I learned so much, having known very little about this topic before. I am in awe of the craftsmanship, design work and attention to scientific detail that the Greeks put into this mechanism. I don't need people telling me that aliens built the pyramids etc - our ancestors were capable of incredible feats of engineering all on their own by putting in a lot of thought and hard, skilled work. Dr Freeth spoke very well and is obviously passionate about his subject.
The Antikythera mechanism was WAY ahead of its time no matter how you look at it! Gears are generally thought to have been invented during the medieval period, but here we have a set of gears from Antiquity!
Yes and they been hiding things ever since about our true human history.
Before you make such claims check with the Chinese. More often than not they will have invented something first.
Before you make such claims check with the Chinese. More often than not they will have invented something first.
Not only a set of gears but an incredibly small and precise set some with teeth only 1.6mm long! Contrast this with the crude gearings of medieval times!
@@view1st I believe the process goes thus
Mediterranean: hey check out this cool idea
India: um actually we invented it first
China: ayyy lmao
Thank you so much for bringing this researcher to explain his own work on the Antikythera mechanism.
Loved it
I saw it when even through the National Archeological Museum. I called my wife over and said "look it's the Antikythera mechanism!" She said, "Uh, Ok...." But to her credit, she pretended to be excited after she saw I was hyped up about seeing it.😂😂
*files for divorce*
@@ulfhedtyrsson She was an artist, and appreciates art much more than science and history. I've probably underappreciated great art at times.
Sorry it's just a joke
@@ulfhedtyrsson I know. My post makes it sound like she's a dummy. But I was just letting folks know that's not the case. It's that our interests are not 100% aligned
@@baarbacoa You might find this fact interesting: medicine, by the Ancient Greeks, was considered an "art" while MUSIC was considered a science! Their "ascending scale of Knowledge" was: Arithmetic, Geometry, Stereometry, Music, Astronomy. This is why ALL Greeks (including children and women) had to learn Music! They were also taught to love LIFE, conquer their fear of Death and do NOT expect life "after death" (unless they became heroes-serving Humanity-then Gods might grand them IMMORTALITY) and to always look at the stars at night, because "that's where the Greeks came from"!
Really blows my mind that this channel doesn’t have several million subscribers. Love your content John!
Imagine the Bell Curve. Draw a line at the right most limit, near the 2% line. That's the limited audience that would find this interesting.
Everyone else is arguing Trump vs. Harris, and twerking.
@@TestTemp-rd1tu that’s sad. I weep for the future. 🥲
@@TheSouthernorycle
Shoulder your White Man's Burden, and keep marching.
Î am fascinated by this and the fact that the ancient Greeks built such a machine. It only proves that my old obsession with ancient Greece is not that crazy.
Aliens, space tech, dinosaurs and ancient humanity ....this podcast reads my fantasies. Cheers John. Awesome.
All of the above ❤
I see dinosaurs as aliens in a way.
@@johnhickey6114 No doubt about it. In our world they would be. If it could be done, my fondest wish would be to go back in time and observe them in 'their' world as an alien myself.
There has been so much nonsense when discussing this device. Fun though it is to speculate, it's nice to hear some real discussion about it!
I get the strong impression you aren't qualified to participate in a "sensical" conversation about the subject, hence your comment.
keep in mind that ancient people took omens very seriously and the cosmos was a great source of omens... so if you're an emperor, or a general or a city-planner, or some high level decision-maker, a computer that can track major omens in the cosmos with a high degree of accuracy could potentially be a priceless asset. important to consider these things through what we know about people's worldview at the time.
Well...maybe. Much of what we know about ancient culture and the educated people of the time is just made up by archeologists to fit a convenient theory that shows history is completely linear and that we are the end all and be all and everything great about homo sapiens.
Much of history is just fantasy created to explain ancient cultures that doesn't upset the pet theories of the status quo. Archeology is not much of a science...its more of a philosophy created in the humanities.
I love this channel so much. Every time a new video drops it's such a good feeling.
Thank you!
There's a video here on youtube of someone recreating the Antikythera mechanism. Took him something like 18 months with modern machines. I can only imagine how many years this must have taken to make in Ancient Greece.
I love these videos to watch before sleep. I'm thinking about what's being said until my brain slowly switching to dream, and those dreams are trippy as hell. And I basically must watch one video 3-4 times until I get to the end of it 😄
Literally me!! This channel and Isaac Arthur are about the only way I get to sleep! Anton Petrov is great too but his videos usually aren't long enough.
So you put it on and fall asleep to it? I do that with The Why Files. I’ll start with this channel too. Thanks
@@PatPauloMMA Always!
I love seeing John branching out a little from the typical topics. This mechanism has always fascinated ne!
More to come!
@@EventHorizonShowcan't wait to watch and listen to it! Hope all is well with you and yours ✌️
Hopefully doing some different topics like these will bring you in some more viewers and subs. You definitely deserve way more than you have!
The Greeks made some incredible mechanism all those years ago. Nowadays, they make incredible souvlaki pitta wraps - you know, the ones with the chips and white sauce😋
Its a device which was used for making Astrological predictions of when things will happen in people's life, to the country and society in general.
The only branch of study which require this detailed knowledge of the position of planets for the betterment of people and society is Astrology!!
This is a powerful device for the ancient Greek astrologers who needed the position of moon, planets and eclipses for making astrological predictions
I suspect the statue of Marduk was a crude early version of this using rolling wheels rather gears.
Great show.
Absolutely fascinating.
Great journey you took us on,beautifully informative.
Tiny criticism- you don’t need the music - it distracts rather than adds to the sense of wonder
"Tiny criticism- you don’t need the music"
I thought it was fine and added to the sense of wonder of the spoken voice.
Love. This. Topic. Can't wait to watch later!
Another big thing people are missing with this device is how they were able to strategically place so many gears into such a small device and have it operate smoothly without binding up.
Your guest is a.great fast thinking speaker. If you were to print out and read all of of his dialogue,it would be a perfect script for a documentary his study of the previous people studying the mechanism and the origin of the discovery are ingrained in his contiousness and the way he keeps me glued to this episode even though I have heard most of these facts previously after viewing every TH-cam channel I could find on the subject. Personally I would like to see individual photos of everything found from the shipwreck
Shoot, i thought it was a documentary! Lol. Great voice too.
I wanted accurate subtitles because some of his words were not completely enunciated. Several times I had to rewind and re-listen, and a few of those attempts did not result in clarity.
My concern is that this man, and others like him, could keel over dead 10 minutes after the interview, and taking with them all their knowledge that should have been recorded. We're in the middle of a struggle to rediscover history, while simultaneously failing to record our own to a degree that our descendants might regard as foolish, and stupid.
There isn't one single detail of this man's life experience that does not have value, even if he is (in his own words) "wrong". Knowing what WRONG is, is called PROGRESS. They should install a microchip on his body and record his every utterance for the rest of his life, to be stored in a great online repository.
Such a fan of Tony Freeth! Michael Wright's working models are pretty incredible; he's the quintessential eccentric English, garden shed engineer/inventor. This was a fantastic listen! When was this interview recorded; close to 2 June 2023, or earlier?
Thank you for keeping the imagery on the device and not on talking heads. Well done.
Great to get this "from the horses mouth" so to speak! Such fascinating item.
The discovery of devices like this just make one wonder what other great knowledge was lost and forgotten . Imagine if these sort of this were never lost
It really feels as though the tendecy for man to disassemble and recycle metals like the copper alloys has caused lots of old world tech to vanish.
I mean they took the pyramid cap stones off to build a city. People are too lazy to cut the stone, mine the metal themselves so we are recyclers. I feel like a lot of humans are good at reconstituting objects to achieve a goal, maybe it's because we have been doing it so long.
@@captainhakob814 Describing ancients as lazy recyclers is very accurate and very true, at least from our perspective. From their perspective it was just practical and efficient. The immediate needs almost always outweigh the future needs, both then and now. Only the perspective changes.
The engraved text, thousands of digits, were less than 2mm tall, did they have magnifying glasses back then ?
No love for Chris from Clickspring? I mean his reconstruction might be as flawed as others from a theoretical point of view but it's probably the most advanced from a manufacturing perspective and we _are_ on TH-cam after all.
Wasn’t aware of it. Will look into it.
@@EventHorizonShow oh you're in for a treat!
Having an interest in design, I personally think the most interesting part of this is the development phase that went into creating it. I mean how many steps of more simple mechanisms went before it? Was it possible to be a one off creation? I doubt it, was this a top line model of a more common device? We'll never know but I think its intriguing.
Great show. Great guest 👍
The 2016 Stanford lecture was just as engaging! Thank you all for the new review!
These people were a lot more sophisticated then history gave them credit for,amazing devise for the time.any idea who made this.
I'm loving these archeology episodes. I wonder if Eric Cline would be interested in doing an interview. 🤔
The Enigma machine, and the Antikythera mechanism Are two of my favorite devices, one from antiquity, and the other from recent history (I have apps for both on my iPhone). Thanks for this great interview.
This was great "new" information. Absolutely enjoyed this! Thank you both!
Great interview/discussion on an amazing artefact that still holds immense fascination, and unanswered questions still.
it's amazing also that with everything we have, the decades of work etc... we still haven't completely figured it out yet or have a complete working model. so intriguing
Thanks for topics and guests I hope to hear ! Thanks John & co
It might be interesting to guess how many people were needed to run the shop that made this,
The device is anchored upon this ratio, 1445 * (7007/12) / 365.2422
1445 : 2310
Venus Synodic Cycles : Earth Years
7007/12 = 583.917 days
Precisely 12 phases of Venus in 7007 days on Earth.
I love the humility on this guy
Outstanding video! I’ve never been so enthralled!
Glad you enjoyed it!
This is absolutely amazing. It very hard for us to understand this device because we don't really now how much the ancient people new. This device shows the knowledge of these people more than the written history does.
I feel that was not the only one.. As they said it seemed the ship was full of cargo thst seemed higher value thus carrying things important.
My thought is it was made for 1. Was to track stars, moon and planets and the cycles.
I believe the other reason was for agriculture. Used to know when was best to plant crops and such. I would bet they were more made just for that reason. Maybe to trade or sell to ther regions and countries to use to have successful the best chance agriculturaly for success..
Right!
On the topic of why they made the Antikythera Mechanism, but not simpler things like clocks: Just because they could make the Antikythera Mechanism doesn't mean a clock would be easy. Why go through the intense effort of manufacturing something that tells the time? The average pleb at the time probably just looked at where the sun was in the sky and said "yeah, it's about dusk." That was all the timekeeping they needed. If they really wanted something more accurate, even a sundial would be infinitely more easier and reasonable to make.
So why the Antikythera Mechanism? I think because it literally tracks the movement of The Heavens... Of the Gods... It basically calculated divine knowledge. Might as well make at least one of these both for it's potential practical purposes and as a tribute to The Gods it keeps track of.
The thing about clocks is that they had them. The Greco-Roman world had really elaborate water clocks, some even self-correcting to a degree, so the concept was there. It just appeared that they hadn't made the leap to the job of the water being done through a wound metal spring. They may not have had springs, but It might also just have been a matter that they did actually know to do that, but these mechanisms were so expensive to construct at the time that no one bit when the water clocks and sun dials were good enough.
As a Greek guy who has tried to read some of the transcribed text on the machine (and understands most of the words), it looks like a user's manual that was printed right on top of the device. Many words are missing of course, but in general I think it's trying to explain to the user what the outputs mean. That's probably the reason for the small text, they just had to fit all those words there. I just find that very interesting, because if that's true it means that the device was made for laymen, it wasn't a device that was shared between scientists in academies. Probably government officials or farmers or just rich people who wanted a cool gadget and didn't understand/weren't interested in learning how it works, they just wanted to be able to read it.
I think you’ve understood it exactly. A device that could be use to predict in advance when the gods would smile or frown could have led to success or failure of human enterprise under the polytheistic belief system of astronomical signs. Wealthy men and kings would pay a fortune to accurately ensure that fate smiled upon risky endeavors. Whoever could establish himself as a guarantor of heavenly signs would be a most trusted advisor, or a proven analog computing device might do so without the chance of subterfuge.
No disruption of space-time continuum required.
Mass extinction event clock. Astronomy.
Incredibly interesting, thanks for another great interview and video, John. ♥️👍
31:30 - It's so humbling looking back at our ancestors from more than two millennia, and knowing that they were just as ingenious and curious in understanding their world as we are, despite their lack of knowledge and technology.
Thank you very much for this incredible podcast!
I would strongly suggest, that if a device like this was found through archaeology, then it was much more common than we think. The chance of discovering an already rare object at the time of its original construction, thousands of years later throudh excavation is astronomically small. The time is just such an immensly destructive and devastating force... sooo little survives the mistress of the universes steady work.
Statistics might agree with you.
Makes one wonder what’s been lost to time that we don’t know anything about.
Seems like this would be invaluable for navigation in an open ocean when clouds obscure the sky.
Yes. This is a fascinating topic
Edit : Remarkably fortunate that this find was managed by the Government instead of pillaged by treasure hunters 🥺
What a pity they haven't incorporated THE latest, DEFINITIVE research ... absolutely PROVING BEYOND ANY DOUBT ... that, in fact, it has NOTHING to do with Eclipses, Tides, Moons, Supernovae, Alien Visitations, and so on!
IN FACT it is ALL to do with predicting how "Succession" will end!
Each character has a gear wheel sized according to their status ... and pegs/rotors/levers are moved in accordance to Logan's moods, etc.
I snuck into the Museum and entered ALL the correct info and ... VOILA! ... "Tom to be CEO; Greg as Eminence Gris-in-training; Shiv with TRIPLETS ... training up THE NEXT GEN of dysfunctional billionaire family!!!"
Look for ancient jewellery and religious icons that have over engineered parts that look like gears and you may find repurposed parts of a broken mechanism.
... the question remains "why did the ancients want to track eclipses?" ... how did it serve their purposes?
We've done this all before, risen up and driven down over and over again for probably millions upon millions of years.
Dr. Freeth is probably underestimating several things. We are often inclined to trust our knowledge, rather consider it potential limitations. In English composition classes, we are told to employ short declarative sentences, that carry more certainty than we are really justified in holding. Evidence from recent discoveries of Archimedes's mathematics text show that he was well on the way toward a functional alternative to a calculus. Roman surveying instruments are commonly depicted as very simple, devises. But they were apparently not common, the Romans also had sophisticated devices comparable to a plane table that could be used for precise mapping, and which even employed finely threaded adjustment screws. Pre-Christian technology was well developed, but . . . a Roman soldier killed Archimedes in his bath. Roman society was politically unstable, sadly corrupt, and slid into the Dark Ages, forgetting much of what was known, while ignorant religious types erased irreplaceable texts in order copy religious drivel, not even original religious drivel. What happened was a political collapse accompanied by an expansion of religious dogma and Church domination that lasted for over 500 years.
Love the podcast. I really look forward to seeing all of these. Thank you so much.
One of the most amazing objects we've ever seen on Earth
Very interesting story. 2 questions suggest themselves a) there must have been prr-cursor devices. Such as a device that only tracked, predicted the position of only the moon. The Antikythera mechanism is too complex to beba 1st attempt. Do we have any research or evidence of earlier such devices? B) does the availability of 3-D printing make it feasible to construct the gear and experiment with how the device works?
Technology like this must have taken generations upon generations to mature. Ignoring what they might have used this device for, there almost had to be various sorts of complex gear devices being used by relatively wealthy people.
Yes, you would certainly think so. They didn’t just suddenly create a device like this… without any predecessor. Even if those earlier examples of this technology are out there somewhere waiting to be discovered, the creator of this one had to be an absolute genius. It’s fascinating to think about.
That is certainly the suspicion of many historians but the lack of evidence prevents speculation. But I mean when one looks at the relative sophistication of the greco roman world, its almost unavoidable. Its like all the other books from antiquity mentioned only in passing. Happens all the time. A good example for the anglo world is like if Shakespeare whole saved body of work would be A Midsummer Night's Dream, but in passing by other peoples writing you hear there were other works like Hamlet or Macbeth. Probably masterpieces but who knows.
@@Atrahasis7 Yeah it has been noted however that because its bronze once any tool or other artifact is no longer needed/useful they generally remelted it down because bronze was very valuable. Thus the absence of such artifacts outside of things lost at sea or burial isn't that surprising either.
I’m an idiot in denial… I claim to be well read concerning the Greeks and Roman’s and history in general… but for the recent ads for Harrison fords upcoming movie? I’ve never heard of this device nor it’s discovery!
Thanks for uploading.
I can't help wondering whether there might be indications of the precession of the equinoxes built into this incredibly complex device?
That was amazingly interesting, I've been interested in this for a long time and this was a well shared insight into the understanding of it.
This was extra good, thank you!
The core question missing from this conversation is motive. Within the cultural context of the ancient world why would the ability to predict future cycles and movements of the moon and planets, eclipses and other astronomical events matter enough to invest the considerable resources required to design and build a machine capable of calculating and making these astronomical forecasts with such precision? It seems to me that astrology, pantheistic religion, and the prevalent belief in mystical omens and prophesy was of very great importance to the ancients. The ability to predict when an eclipse will next happen or when the moon with it's seemingly variable pace of movement through the sky would next be in a particular house of the zodiac were of great importance to all sorts of administrative decisions, war strategy, and pretty much any other project planning that the ancients might want to undertake. If I'm right about this, then the Antikythera Mechanism is a remarkable artifact in so far as it employed very sophisticated mathematics, scientific observations, and technological skill in the service of what was ultimately a mystical end goal or purpose of assisting augury and oracular prophesy. The mechanism was probably a sacred object of the priests of some temple, something secretly consulted before they would pronounce an answer to a question put to their oracle. The shipwreck it was found on sounds like it was probably a treasure ship filled with looted spoils of war, and a sacred object capable of predicting the movements of the heavens would certainly be considered a great treasure in the ancient world.
Mass extinction clock
Outstanding interview.
Thank you.
Lovely as always
One of the most fascinating archeological objects ever discovered
Looking forward to this one
Theres no way this was a one off and yet no device remotely like this discovered which dates older then the 15th century
what a remarkable interview....time flew
Thank you for watching.
Congrats, amazing podcast!
Thanks for listening
Greetings from the BIG SKY of Montana. Falling into your space is fun.
A few years back I purchased as partially working full scale model of this device from a museum (Kotsanas Museum) in Greece for 550 Euros (2019). It is based on models predating 2005 (Freeth et al). This is a nice model but a bit pricey.
43:00 The thing that really held back technology in the classical world was slavery. The steam engine toy invented at the time could have been employed as a labor saving device, but who cares about labor savings when you have slaves?
You aren't engaged in labor yourself, and so you would never see better ways to do the work. The slaves might, but they had no power to effect change.
Brilliant instruction. As an Iranian, I congratulate Greeks with their noble ancient sciences.
Yes! Good ol John Godier, I know it's gonna be good when he's the speaker.
Excellent coverage. Keep it coming. ❤
Mechanical clocks didn't arise until there was a need for them. Accurate clocks were needed for global navigation, but that didn't occur until many centuries after the classical Greeks. Also Rome wanted a way to put the whole world on schedule, for which they also needed clocks. Thus the Greeks, without a real need for clocks, didn't invent them. Moreover their centuries of celestial observation could tell them what "time" it was at any point in the day. Just look at the sky.
An hour long discussion of an ancient device designed to predict relative positions of celestial objects, about a third of which was dedicated to speculating about what it may have been for, and the word "astrology" wasn't even mentioned. Well, if one follows Occam's razor, a rich ancient Roman dude would want to know where the planets will be in the future for precisely one reason, to have their personal horoscope cast. Saying that the device's purpose was to do trigonometry is not answering to what purpose would the ancients need to be able to do trigonometry. It's not a mystery that astrology and astronomy were not only not separated back then, but that astrology (as in the promise of meaningfully predicting future outcomes for people) provided the motivation to advance in astronomy, and for the rich dudes to fund it. The planets were literally gods to the ancients, for Zeus's/Jupiter's sake. I mean, maybe there's a chance that this common sense, mainstream history, and principle of parsimony-based supposition is wrong, but how has no researcher studying this thing even commented on that, or even used the word "astrology"? Sorry for the rant, but I have just published a book about modern astrology-related research and this type of stuff borders on skeptical (self?)censorship. Or I guess a giant gaping blind spot in the education of modern mathematicians, physicists, engineers, astronomers, and the like.
That explains the mechanism but how did it work in practice. How did they set it up, was it continuous or could the set up with reference to stars and moon. Sorry if discussed, at gym whilst watching and sometimes I have to focus on exercise. But what an excellent way to enjoy exercise by listening to one of my favourite podcast.
I subscribed yesterday! This is great content, thank you!
This us a great video on a facinating device. The questions it creates and some of answers are startling. I hope Xtech, not sure of the spelling, is doing well. They pursued an expensive project when most businesses would have been more concerned with existence.
I love that we are periodically and subliminally reminded that we live on a big rotating sphere. Is it because this machine along with the astrolabe is based on a stationary earth?
It was an Astrologer's instrument.
Unfortunately, it's a sin to dare admit that those mathematicians who were also studying astronomy in ancient times, did so for astrological purposes of interpretation.
Fortunately, there are original source texts available these days, translations by Dr. Benjamin Dykes recommended, that elucidate the gross underestimation of the depth of astrological practice, at present, while also highlighting elite academic prejudice and the profound overestimation of the adequacy of a purely physics-based model of perceived reality.
Our history of evolution and humanity needs a greater looking at and re examining on all levels.
You have fallen Into Event Horizon…
…In which we liiiiiiive.