WEBVTT - Antikythera Update 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:08.119 Get in touch with technology with text stuff from dot com. 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:14.520 Kay there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.000 and today I wanted to do a quick update to 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.599 an episode that first published November eight, two thousand thirteen. 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:23.840 In that episode, Joe McCormick joined the show to talk 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.400 about an ancient computer we anti kither One mechanism. Now, 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:29.840 the mechanism is a really cool device, and Joe and 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:31.800 I had a lot of fun and talking about it. 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:35.440 But I don't want to spoil my surprise, so let's 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.160 run the episode and I'll tell you the exciting news 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:47.640 stuff at the end. I gave Joe the ability to 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.599 choose whatever topic he wanted to pick, as long as 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.360 it wasn't something that we had, you know, covered extensively 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.600 in tech stuff in the past. So, Joe, why would 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.960 you like to talk about? Well, Um, on forward Thinking, 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:03.400 we usually talk about the future or another and um 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:06.480 so I wanted to go in completely the opposite direction 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:10.840 and talk about the technology of the past. And I 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:15.320 started thinking, I wonder, what's the oldest computer that we 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.800 know about? Oh, I got you. So we're talking nineteen 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.640 forty six with any ac right that computer that you 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.240 would end up programming with lots of plugs and switches, 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:27.080 not at all. Wow, no, so wait are you you're 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:29.640 saying it's older than that? Older? Okay? All right, well fine, 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.240 how about the ninety two that's the Tennis Soft Berry 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:36.280 Computer or ABC, which was built at Iowa State College 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:39.840 which now university obviously, but it was there was a 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:44.440 patent dispute actually, that was decided in the United States 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.800 government about whether any AC or the ABC computer were first, 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:51.080 and ultimately they said that it, uh, you could not 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:53.920 have anyone to claim they were the ones to invent 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:58.240 the computer. That's the first one, right, ABC computer. Okay, 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.040 Light ninety one. We're starting to get a little fuzzy here, 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:04.520 but all right. So Conrad Zeus builds the Z three 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.280 computer and that was also the same year when the 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:09.880 first BOMBA was built, you know, one of the devices 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:16.480 meant to help decrypt German messages. That's it, right, alright. 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:21.200 Ninety nine George Stibbitts completes the complex number calculator the 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:25.079 C and C at Bell Telephone Laboratories. We just finished 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:26.640 talking about Bell Labs. This has got to be it. 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:30.080 And even in the first demonstration he used teletype so 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:34.480 that he could program this remotely over special telephone line. 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:36.800 So it was the first remote computer as well. So 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:41.320 that's it, right, I think you need to think less electricity. Fine, Fine, 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:47.200 eighteen thirty seven. The Analytical Engine. Charles Babbage. He designs this, 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.760 never finishes it in his lifetime. But of course that 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.680 is the device that Ada Lovelace, the Enchantress of numbers, 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:58.560 had possibly even created computer programs for algorithms where she 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:02.359 envisioned a time where you could encode things like music 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:06.079 and poetry into mathematics. That's it, the analytical engine. Okay, 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.600 so we're gonna talk about that. No, you're you're about 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:16.440 two years off. Say what I'm not not about almost okay, 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.680 so what are you talking about? I'm talking about something 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:24.560 that is called the antique antique antique. Oh, we're gonna 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:29.600 have this problem the whole time. The anti Cithera me Yes, 0:03:29.720 --> 0:03:32.320 the anti Cithera mechanism or also known as the anti 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:35.960 Kathera mechanism. Yeah, it all depends on the r which 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:39.680 pronunciation you followed. Anti Cuithera seems to be fairly commonplace. 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:41.920 So we're gonna go ahead and use that one and 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.440 probably switch off without even thinking about it. All right, 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:48.160 I know a little bit about this, but I guess 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:50.360 before we talk about this mechanism, maybe we need to 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.800 say what the heck is Anti Cithera. For anyone who 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:57.160 is not familiar with the the geography of Greece, you 0:03:57.200 --> 0:03:59.800 may not know this. This refers to a place. Yeah, 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:04.080 it's an island in the Mediterranean Sea. And if you, um, 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.440 if you imagine you're looking at the Mediterranean, it's the 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:10.400 small island that's between Crete to the south and the 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.960 Peloponnesian Peninsula up to the north, so the mainland of Greece, 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:16.320 and it's right there in the middle. Um, there's a 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.520 bigger island just called Kythera, and this is a smaller 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:23.159 one offset from it, called Anti So if Anti Cithera 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:26.560 and Kithera were to collide, it would just destroy one another. 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:31.880 Total positronic revers Yeah, you tell him about the twinkie, 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:35.720 so you know, joking aside. Does that mean that this 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.400 is where that mechanism was was made? Um? No, probably not. 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:44.280 This is where the mechanism was discovered. It got its name, gotcha. 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.640 So someone was walking around Anti Cithera one day and 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.599 they stubbed their toe and oh, what's this and found 0:04:50.600 --> 0:04:55.120 the world's oldest computer. No, it's much creepier. Um. Okay, 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:58.400 So the story goes like this. Around the r nineteen hundred, 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.679 there was a group of sponged divers who were off 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.400 the coast of Antikithera and they were doing their diving 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:08.320 and just whatever sponge divers do. They were gathering sponges, 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:11.920 gathering sponges to wash all their dishes exactly. Um. So 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:14.359 they were doing their thing. But apparently one of the 0:05:14.440 --> 0:05:17.719 divers came up to the surface and he was like, guys, 0:05:17.800 --> 0:05:20.360 there are dead women lying all over the bottom of 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.240 the ocean. There's a bunch of naked dead ladies at 0:05:23.240 --> 0:05:28.320 the bottom of the ocean. Yet sounds creepy. But statos. Yeah, 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.160 Actually what he was seeing were statues. They were bronze 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.200 and marble statues that were part of the payload of 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:39.279 a almost well I guess about exactly to year old 0:05:39.400 --> 0:05:43.599 ship wreck of a ship that was a Roman ship, 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.719 a large Roman ship carrying a lot of cargo, much 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.400 of it probably stolen or looted cargo. Right, we're talking 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:52.799 at an era just around the time when the Romans 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:57.360 were beginning to uh let's say, incorporate the Hellenistic societies 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:01.880 into their empire. Of course, So it had all these 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:06.680 Greek artifacts on it, Yeah, luxury items, like really expensive 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.160 stuff in the Greek world. Yeah. And so the idea is, 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:12.560 we don't know exactly what the ship was doing. We 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.200 think it was probably a ship that was returning to 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:20.480 Rome from some destination uh in the Greek world. And 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.040 so there are a lot of these Greek artifacts, including currency. Uh. 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:28.160 They had like you said, statues, they had lots of pottery, um, 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:32.679 and they had this this device, which was well, at first, 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.440 it was just a lump, right, yeah, right, yeah first. Well, 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.119 and of course it didn't get that much attention early 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.520 on because there was so much other stuff down there 0:06:40.520 --> 0:06:44.239 in that shipwreck. Right, So the people who went into 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:47.440 really investigate the shipwreck and take a look and see 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.880 what was going on, they didn't necessarily realize that there 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:56.440 was something truly special, something that was beyond just uh 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.240 special from an artistic merit point of view, but could 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:03.160 tell us a lot about how much the ancient Greeks 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:09.000 knew about craftsmanship, about astronomy, about math, all of these 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:13.400 things we've become apparent. But only a hundred years later, 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:17.160 right after the explorer. So so it it's it's forgotten 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.119 for two thousand years essentially, and then for another hundred 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.080 years we don't really know what it is. So it's 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.840 kind of this lump of corroded bronze inside what what 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.040 used to be a wooden box essentially disintegrated. Yeah, so 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:33.080 there's like there's one big remaining lump, but they're about 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:36.920 eighty two fragments in total, right, So one of those fragments, 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:41.000 the main fragment, has the vast majority of the what 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.520 we know of as the inner workings of whatever this 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:45.960 device was supposed to be. And we know a lot 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.200 more about now, but don't want to ruin the surprise, no, 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.280 But so basically we can say like what it was 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.480 made of. So what they think now is, Okay, this 0:07:54.520 --> 0:07:57.320 looks like it was some kind of collection of bronze 0:07:57.480 --> 0:08:01.080 gears inside of a wooden casing. Yeah. In fact, at 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:03.120 first they thought it might only be just one gear 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:05.520 that somehow was loose from something else, and then they realized, no, 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:09.240 there's actually several gears here, but it's all corroded together. Yeah, 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.520 it's it's sort of like a fused into a big 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:17.360 bottom of the ocean snotball, Yeah exactly, that's very accurate. Um. 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.680 But so if you can imagine I would call like 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:25.080 imagine a mid sized dictionary, not like a pocket dictionary, 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.200 but also not that huge one from the library that 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.320 you couldn't see it on a pedestal, like a like 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:36.240 a large hardback dictionary. Um. And it's got a wooden casing, 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:38.920 so you could open that casing up and then inside 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:43.280 you've got this corroded mass that uh, that is all 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.680 this gear formation. Now, of course the wooden casing doesn't 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:50.880 really remain except in rotted fragmentary form. Um. But that's 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:54.920 the basic mechanism we're dealing with. And if you start 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:56.960 to look at it, you would see this one big 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:02.000 gear um, but you might wonder what does this thing do? Yeah? 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.240 And beyond that, I mean, before we even get to that, 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.000 like how old is this thing? Oh? Yeah, because I 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.520 mean we we figured that the shipwreck happens sometime around 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:14.680 eighty five b C. E before common eras because mostly 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.360 because of the dates that we found and I say we, 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:21.040 but the explorers found on the currency. Yeah. You know, 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.240 sometimes Joe and I we get we get tired of 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:25.760 working on stuff or four thinking we pop out to 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.839 the Greek islands and then just go well skin diving. Yeah, 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:32.440 you know, and X, by the way does mark the 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.720 spot now, but we by dating things like the currency, 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.920 they have sort of narrowed the ranged around eight five 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:41.880 b C. But that that doesn't necessarily mean that's how 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.440 old the device is. No, they think that the device 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:47.200 is older than the wreck, so it wasn't built like 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:50.840 right before that. It's generally dated between a hundred and 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:53.560 a hundred and fifty b C. So it's thought of 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.680 as a second century b c E device, Right, So 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:00.400 so it is an ancient device. Uh, that's seems to 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:02.880 be about how old it is. Uh, we've got some 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:07.080 ideas of where it may have come from. There were some, No, 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:10.360 we don't we don't have any The instruction manual for 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.240 this device was not anywhere to be found. It was 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.240 not on the glove compartment of this shipwreck, so we 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.880 can't be absolutely certain. Uh. There's some speculation that maybe 0:10:19.920 --> 0:10:22.520 it was the island of Rhodes, which was known for 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.600 its scholarship and also it's craftsmanship. But there are some 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:28.120 other options as well that we can talk about. But 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.240 beyond that. Um, we've talked about what was made of, 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.280 we talked about how old it was, but yeah, what 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:36.959 what did this thing do? And at first it was 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.360 a real mystery. In fact, for like we said, like 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.840 a century, it was a mystery. We just didn't have 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:45.480 enough information to be able to determine that. We had 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.800 some wild guests. There were people who made some good guesses, 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.400 but they didn't know the full extent yet. Um, and 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.679 that they didn't realize initially how awesome this thing was. 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:57.920 You know, we can make an argument that this is 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.960 the oldest computer, which obviously means that it has to 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.240 do more than just have some inner work, inner working 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:06.679 gears that move smoothly. It has to do something beyond that, 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:11.199 because otherwise anything that was reliant on gears and clockwork 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.360 you could call a computer. But we'll get into exactly 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.320 what it is that this thing did. That kind of 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.400 makes us consider it more of a computer device and 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:25.440 analog computer than some sort of interesting clockwork. Right. So, um, 0:11:25.440 --> 0:11:28.880 but in general, what we understand it to have been 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:31.080 able to do, and in fact, we understand a lot 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:33.720 more about it in very recent years than we had 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:37.160 for the century leading up to it. Oh well, I'd say, 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:40.359 now we've basically had a slam dunk in this one. 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.439 Recent recent revelations have shown us, oh, this is pretty 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:45.880 much exactly what it is, Yeah, which is phenomenal when 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.280 you think of how badly in repair this thing was. 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.319 But but ultimately what it does is it's it's a 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:57.720 device that not only tracks celestial events and the movement 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:02.480 of celestial bodies in relation into our perspective here on Earth, 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.439 it also predicts them. So in other words, you not 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.880 only can you can you keep track of what's going on, 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.079 and it could give you an indication of where you 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:12.839 would need to look in the sky if you wanted 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:17.080 to see something like Mars. It also would tell you that, oh, 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.400 on this particular date, you will have a full solar eclipse. 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.079 It's kind of cool, yeah, In other words, an astronomical 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:27.880 calculatory UM. And so what it would do is you 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:32.319 would have a position of the Earth and then UM 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.160 by moving the hand crying which which no longer exists, 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:38.679 but that's that's what figure. It was a hand crank 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:43.560 that that provided the the kinetic energy to make everything turn. 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.559 But by moving that you could see at the same 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:51.000 time based on a projected date in the future, the 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:55.800 positions of the Sun, of the Moon, um, probably of 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.600 the planets we don't know the planet gears are missing, 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:01.880 probably the at least the plants that the Greeks knew about, 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.560 which included the probably not the planetists, probably not the 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.959 we don't think well, not Neptune Uranus or or if 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.079 you want to be kind, Pluto um. They they had 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.240 identified as far out as Saturn. Now, if in fact 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:19.160 we were to find evidence that it included these other 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:21.560 planets as well, that as far as we know, they 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.440 didn't know about, then that would make the third part 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.920 of our conversation they get a little more interesting. It 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:30.280 also had yeah, as you said, an eclipse prediction dial 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.280 uh and that's really cool. Uh. And it also predicted 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:38.439 cultural events, So that's true, like the Olympiad, right, because 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.120 you had a schedule of when that would take place, 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.319 and so by plotting it against this device and actually 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:47.600 inscribing it on the device, you could in a factor 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:50.400 then you could see what the what the celestial events 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:52.920 were going to be at a planned future event that way, 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:56.880 which is kind of handy. Um. But we'll talk specifically. 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:58.600 We need to really get into the nitty gritty of 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:02.240 how this is possible, and then we'll conclude at the 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.080 end talking about how we know all of this stuff, because, 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.679 as you're gonna learn, it's really complicated to figure out 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.080 how a device works if you can't actually visualize all 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.880 the gears when you first get hold of it. Before 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.560 we get into that conversation, let's take a quick break 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.200 to thank our sponsor. Alright, we're back, so let's talk 0:14:19.280 --> 0:14:23.400 about how this device actually tracked celestial events, because we 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:25.360 we know they are all these gears. There's a hand 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:29.960 cranky turn. It moves things forwards that you can look 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.080 at what the celestial conditions are on any given date, 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.520 or you can even advance it so that you can 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.120 look for a specific celestial event. Let's say you're looking 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.520 specifically for when is the next eclipse going to occur, 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.360 So you're not looking to see what the celestial scott 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:48.920 what the sky is going to look like, um, three 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:50.480 months from now, you just want to know when the 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:53.080 next eclipse is. You could advance the handle from your 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:56.480 date and keep doing it until you saw the eclipse 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.400 information come up, and then compare that see what the 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.120 date is on the other part of the indicator. We'll 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:04.240 talk about all the different dials. This should be indicated 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:06.040 by a dial, so it's like a it's like an 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.960 analog clock face. You would be spinning around a point 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.480 to let you know when this is coming exactly. And 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.280 then you could say, oh, all right, so the next 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.160 eclipse is in you know, you know, three months and 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:20.160 two weeks from now or whatever. And uh so there's 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.400 a lot of different ways you could use this. Well, um, 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:27.360 there were about thirty thirty one gears that we know of, 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.520 probably the least at least more or at least thirty, 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.360 probably more. So it's I think hypothesized that there were 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.560 more to deal with the movement of the planets that 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:39.480 that's just lost. And you know, it's not a surprise 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:41.840 because again, like I said, when we call it bad repair, 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:43.520 I mean you're you think about this. This is like 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:47.200 essentially the imagine a clock that's been fused into one piece. 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:50.720 I mean, an old style gear clock fused into one piece. 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.480 That's kind of and it's it's opaque, so you can't 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:55.880 see these gears that are on the inside just with 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:58.640 the naked eye. But we'll get into how we figured 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:01.040 more about this in a little bit. But so you 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.400 had all these different dials that would mark different events, 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:08.520 uh and different time spans. Right, So you would have 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.200 a dial that would be set up for, uh, for 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.920 just regular keeping of of a calendar year. But there 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:19.400 were also dials that were more attuned to specific celestial cycles. 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:23.240 So for example, there might be a nineteen year cycle 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:26.560 that's represented by one dial, another one had i I 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.040 think a seventy five year dial. And these dials were 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:34.000 to refer to things that patterns that would repeat once 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:37.080 you hit those time frames, so like every nineteen years, 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:41.360 this one set of pattern would repeat itself. So that's 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:45.320 why they have these different dials to indicate exactly what's 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:48.960 happening at exactly what time. Uh. What I loved was 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.600 the idea that there was one gear specifically devoted to 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:55.520 showing the phase of the moon. So not only would 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.840 you see the position of the moon on any given date, 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:01.240 but you would also see what phase it was in, 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:04.280 whether it was waxing or waning, a new moon, full moon, whatever, 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.399 and and uh, I really thought that was very clever. 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:12.199 So yeah, you essentially either either refer to the dates 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.919 and look at the celestial events to compare the two, 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:17.760 or you had said it, so that you would look 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.920 at a specific configuration of the celestial body and then 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:26.480 look at what date corresponded to it. It's um kind 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:32.679 of amazing to imagine the complex planning and craftsmanship that 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.760 went into a machine like this, because, um, when you 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.960 start thinking about it, Okay, say somebody set you down 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:42.440 and told you to try to build something like this, 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:44.879 and you had you know, it was open book test. 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.920 You knew what time frame all these celestial events would 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.119 occur in. How would you do it? Yeah, I mean God, 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.400 so you would have kind of figure out the relationships 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:59.520 between the sizes of gears um and the way they 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:06.080 would lock to create fractional relationships between the movements of 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:08.840 all the different bodies at the same time. And keep 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:11.520 in mind that if this thing is reflecting say planets 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.840 and stuff like that, well, from a geocentric point of view, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.800 the movement of the planets is not just a simple circle. 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.200 I mean you see them, they persiss and then they 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:27.040 go backwards and all of these things exactly. So if 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.120 you and there's a fellow named Michael T. Wright who 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.120 built a replica of this device, and we'll talk more 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:35.240 about him probably in a bit, but he there's a 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:38.920 great video that demonstrates him using this machine to show 0:18:38.960 --> 0:18:42.840 the movement of these different elements, and sometimes you see 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.840 them moving kind of backward compared to other elements, and 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.439 you think, wow, the gears have to account for that too. 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.320 The gears have to be able to do very complex 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.320 movements of these uh, these these arms that are on 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:59.720 these dials in order to reflect what is really happening. 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:05.119 And while the model itself uh does depict a geocentric 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.119 view of celestial bodies, we can't be sure that the 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:13.320 person who built it necessarily ascribed necessararily ascribed to a 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:18.360 geocentric philosophy. Oh, that's certainly true, because for the device's function, 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:22.240 I mean it was, it was functionally geocentric, right, because 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:26.399 we're from exactly. Even if the person who made it 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:28.600 actually thought the Earth went around the Sun, it would 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:31.520 still look the same pretty much, because if you're reflecting 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.199 how the world, how the how the celestial you know, 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.600 elements look compared to being on the Earth, it makes 0:19:37.640 --> 0:19:41.000 no sense to make it anything other than geocentric. So 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:46.239 the heliocentric theories had been placed ahead of when we 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:50.800 think this device was made. So it's possible we don't know, 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.439 because there were still people who who's ascribed to a 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:57.359 geocentric worldview. I'd probably that was dominant, Yeah, because because 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:00.240 it was similar to what we would see centries later, 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:03.640 where to propose such a thing as a helos heliocentric 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.600 view would mean that you might suffer a little bit 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:12.359 of let's say, you might get ostracized with extreme prejudice. 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:15.560 People didn't like here in that. Yeah. So anyway, you know, 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.879 it does look like it was going to show you 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.120 not only the Sun and Moon's movements, which is already 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.680 complex enough because they don't move at the same you 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:27.440 know rate, or you know, they change positions, uh differently 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.640 relative to one another. Then to throw in the other 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:33.960 planets makes that or the plants that the Greeks knew about, 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:38.359 makes it even more complex. So here's the question, does 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.199 this count as a computer? I would say absolutely. I 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:44.840 would say so too, And I've got a little argument here. 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:48.120 Tell me what you think of so um, I'd say 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.640 the basic definition of a computer. A lot of times 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:54.040 it's included that it's electronic. But let's take that part 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:57.320 out and say, well, whether or not it's electronic. UM, 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.520 A computers like an interactive machine that and and these 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:05.280 words often come up, store, retrieve, and process data. That's fair. Um, 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:09.560 so it's like input, output and processing and storage. Yeah. 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:13.480 I always think of it as something that can can 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.520 take input, put it through some form of algorithm, meaning 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:20.399 a set of rules, and then give you output on 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:22.840 the other side. And it's predictable. It's going to do 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.240 that the same way. Like, assuming that you put in 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:27.840 the same input and you're running it through the same algorithm, 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:30.679 you're always going to get the same output. Okay, so 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.000 both definitions work very well together. Yeah, I'd say the 0:21:34.040 --> 0:21:37.240 biggest distinction is that today's computers we think of as 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:42.000 being general use. So you you have hardware that can compute, 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.600 but you've also got software to boss the hardware around, 0:21:45.680 --> 0:21:48.360 so it can tell it to compute in different ways. Right. 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.520 So in that way, you can have a single machine 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.399 allow you to do Excel spreadsheets or play you know, 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:57.399 the first person shooter game. Right. But obviously without electronics, 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:02.200 this this ancient computer doesn't have software. It just has hardware. 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.120 Or it's like thinking about a computer that can only 0:22:05.200 --> 0:22:08.159 run one program, which is not that difficult to imagine. 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:10.520 I mean, if you if you think of calculators as 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:14.520 a subset of computers. Calculators like your basic calculator. I'm 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:16.960 not talking about your super crazy calculators that have apps 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:20.640 on them and everything, but your basic calculator does basic 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:25.200 calculator functions. It's, you know, again, taking that input, putting 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:28.359 it through an algorithm, some sort of mathematical process, and 0:22:28.400 --> 0:22:32.360 you get an output similar to this device. Yeah. So 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:36.000 this device, it's like a computer that only has one job. 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:39.120 But within that job, I think it's definitely worth saying 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.800 it's a computer because its stores data. So the relationships 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:47.240 between the astronomical pathways are represented by the mechanical math 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:49.479 that's done between the teeth and the gears. So like 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:53.480