WEBVTT - Rerun: Antikythera Update 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.600 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.720 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.120 and I love all things tech and folks. My plan 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:24.840 was to present part two of the Founding of General 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.760 Motors for today. I was going to do a full 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.600 episode about that, and I'm still working on it, but 0:00:30.920 --> 0:00:36.200 my neighborhood has been hit with some outages in internet service, uh, 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.640 quite a few of them. Unfortunately. That has really impaired 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:44.680 my ability to continue my research and dive in and 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:48.080 be able to frame out that episode. But I don't 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.120 want to leave you guys without an episode to listen to. 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:54.080 And at the same time, I can't really record something 0:00:54.080 --> 0:00:57.000 new unless I'm just speaking off the cuff, and let's 0:00:57.040 --> 0:01:00.040 be honest, none of us want that. So instead and 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.240 I thought I would bring to you a classic episode. 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.520 This is actually called the Antikithera Update episode, but there's 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.399 an update to the update that I will talk about 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:15.800 once this episode plays through. This was a very special 0:01:15.800 --> 0:01:18.240 episode where Joe McCormick, who is now one of the 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.360 co hosts of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, joined me 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:26.200 for the show. And we talked about this remarkable device 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:30.399 from the Greeks of old that was discovered in the 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.800 early twentieth century and what we had learned from it 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.880 up to that point. But as you will hear when 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.440 we get to the end, we've learned a little bit more. 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:42.640 So let's listen to this classic episode and I'll chat 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:44.360 with you some more at the end of the episode. 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:49.600 On forward thinking, we usually talk about the future or 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.960 another and um, so I wanted to go in completely 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:57.160 the opposite direction and talk about the technology of the past. 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:02.520 And I started thinking, I wonder, what's the oldest computer 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:04.560 that we know about? Oh, I got you. So we're 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.960 talking nineteen forty six with ani AC, right, that computer 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.280 that you would end up programming with lots of plugs 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:14.519 and switches, not at all? Wow? No, so wait are you? 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:16.880 You're saying it's older than that? Older? Okay, al right, 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.280 well find how about the ninety two that's the TENNAS 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:23.120 soft Berry computer or ABC, which was built at Iowa 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.560 State College which is now university. Obviously, but there was 0:02:26.960 --> 0:02:30.760 there was a patent dispute actually that was decided in 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.080 the United States government about whether any AC or the 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:38.160 ABC computer were first and ultimately they said that it uh, 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.000 you could not have anyone to claim they were the 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:43.120 ones to invent the computer. That's the first one, right, 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:48.560 ABC computer. Okay, alright, N one. We're starting to get 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.040 a little fuzzy here, but all right, So Conrad Zeus 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.760 builds the Z three computer. And that was also the 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:56.079 same year when the first bomba was built, you know, 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.720 one of the devices meant to help decrypt German messages. 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:06.519 That's it, right, all right? Ninety nine George Stimmitts completes 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:10.119 the complex number calculator, the c n C at Bell 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.720 Telephone Laboratories. We just finished talking about Bell Labs. This 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:15.200 has got to be it. And even in the first 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:19.160 demonstration he used teletype so that he could program this 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:23.080 remotely over special telephone line, so it was the first 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.680 remote computer as well. So that's it, right, I think 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:30.080 you need to think less electricity fine, fine eighty seven 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:35.800 the Analytical Engine. Charles Babbage, he designs this, never finishes 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:37.960 it in his lifetime, but of course that is the 0:03:38.000 --> 0:03:42.720 device that Ada Lovelace, the Enchantress of Numbers, had possibly 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.920 even created computer programs for algorithms where she envisioned a 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.640 time where you could encode things like music and poetry 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.920 into mathematics. That's it, the analytical engine. Okay, so we're 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:57.960 gonna talk about that. You're you're about two years off 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:04.680 to say what not about? Almost? Okay, so what are 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:08.080 you talking about? I'm talking about something that is called 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:12.640 the antique antique antique. Oh, we're gonna have this problem 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:17.760 the whole time, the anti cithera mess Yes, the anti 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:21.680 cithera mechanism or also known as the antikathera mechanism. Yeah, 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.560 it all depends on the r which pronunciation you follow. 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.240 Anti Cithera seems to be fairly commonplace. So we're gonna 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.440 go ahead and use that one and probably switch off 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.760 without even thinking about it. All right, I know a 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.400 little bit about this, but I guess before we talk 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:38.560 about this mechanism, maybe we need to say what the 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.479 heck is anti Cithera. For anyone who is not familiar 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.280 with the the geography of Greece, you may not know 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:47.920 this is. This refers to a place. Yeah, it's an 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.880 island in the Mediterranean Sea. And if you um, if 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:54.520 you imagine you're looking at the Mediterranean, it's the small 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.720 island that's between Crete to the south and the Peloponnesian 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.599 Peninsula up to the north, so the mainland of Greece, 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:03.960 and it's right there in the middle. Um, there's a 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.120 bigger island just called Kythera, and this is a smaller 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.919 one offset from it called Antikythera. So if Antikithera and 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.479 Kithera were to collide, it would just destroy one another. Yeah, 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:19.840 total positronic reversilation. Yeah, you know, tell them about the twinkie. So, 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:23.440 you know, joking aside, Does that mean that this is 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.600 where that mechanism was made? Um? No, probably not. This 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.919 is where the mechanism was discovered. How it got its name? Gotcha? 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.799 So someone was walking around Antikithera one day and they 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.320 stubbed their toe and oh, what's this and found the 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.920 world's oldest computer. No, it's much creepier. Um, okay, So 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.040 the story goes like this. Around the year nineteen hundred, 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.320 there was a group of sponge divers who were off 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.599 the coast of Anti Cithera and they were doing their 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.920 diving and guess whatever sponge divers do, they were gathering sponges, 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.560 gathering sponges to wash all their dishes exactly. Um, So 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.000 they were doing their thing but apparently one of the 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.360 divers came up to the surface and he was like, guys, 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:08.000 there are dead women lying all over the bottom of 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:10.840 the ocean. There's a bunch of naked dead ladies at 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:15.960 the bottom of the ocean. Yeah, sounds creepy, but SATs. Yeah. 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.840 Actually what he was seeing were statues. There were bronze 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.839 and marble statues that were part of the payload of 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.680 a almost well I guess about exactly to two year 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:31.200 old ship wreck of a ship that was a Roman ship, 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.360 a large Roman ship carrying a lot of cargo, much 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:38.039 of it probably stolen or looted cargo. Right, we're talking 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:40.400 at an era just around the time when the Romans 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:45.000 were beginning to uh, let's say, incorporate the Hellenistic societies 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:49.520 into their empire. Of course, So it had all these 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:53.159 Greek artifacts on it, yeah, and the luxury items, like 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.720 really expensive stuff in the Greek world. Yeah. And so 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.559 the idea is, we don't know exactly what the ship 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:01.760 was doing. We think it was probably a ship that 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:06.760 was returning to Rome from some destination uh in the 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:08.960 Greek world. And so there are a lot of these 0:07:09.000 --> 0:07:13.440 Greek artifacts, including currency. Uh. They had like you said, statues, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.560 they had lots of pottery, um, and they had this 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.760 this device, which was well, at first, it was just 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.640 a lump, right, yeah, right, yeah, first, Well, and of 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:26.200 course it didn't get that much attention early on because 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.160 there was so much other stuff down there in that shipwreck. Right, 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:33.920 So the people who went into really investigate the shipwreck 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.360 and take a look and see what was going on, 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:41.480 they didn't necessarily realize that there was something truly special, 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:45.400 something that was beyond just uh special from an artistic 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:47.640 merit point of view, but could tell us a lot 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:55.160 about how much the ancient Greeks knew about craftsmanship, about astronomy, 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.240 about math, all of these things we've become apparent, but 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:03.200 only a hundred years later, right after the explorer. So 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.400 so it' it's it's forgotten for two thousand years essentially, 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.920 and then for another hundred years we don't really know 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:10.880 what it is. So it's kind of this lump of 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.400 corroded bronze inside what what used to be a wooden 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:18.400 box essentially disintegrated. Yeah, so there's like there's one big 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:23.240 remaining lump, but they're about eighty two fragments in total. Right, 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:26.440 So one of those fragments. The main fragment has the 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:29.480 vast majority of the what we know of as the 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.840 inner workings of whatever this device was supposed to be. 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:34.560 And we know a lot more about now, but don't 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.760 want to ruin the surprise. No, But so basically we 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:40.360 can say like what it was made of. So what 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.800 they think now is, Okay, this looks like it was 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.040 some kind of collection of bronze gears inside of a 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:49.280 wooden casing. Yeah. In fact, at first they thought it 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:51.800 might only be just one gear that somehow was loose 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:53.800 from something else, and then they realized, no, there's actually 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.040 several gears here, but it's all corroded together. Yeah, it's 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.959 it's sort of like a fused into a big body 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:05.000 of the ocean, snotball. Yeah exactly. That's very accurate. Um. 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.280 But so if you can imagine, I would call like 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.720 imagine a mid sized dictionary, not like a pocket dictionary, 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:14.800 but also not that huge one from the library that 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:21.760 you couldn't see it like a like a large hardback dictionary. Um. 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.800 And it's got a wooden casing, so you could open 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:28.319 that casing up and then inside you've got this corroded 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:32.160 mass that uh, that is all this gear formation. Now, 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.400 of course the wooden casing doesn't really remain except in 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:40.320 rotted fragmentary form um. But that's the basic mechanism we're 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.120 dealing with. And if you start to look at it, 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.920 you would see this one big gear um, but you 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:50.360 might wonder what does this thing do? Yeah, and beyond that, 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:52.560 I mean, before we even get to that, like how 0:09:52.640 --> 0:09:54.839 old is this thing? Oh? Yeah, because I mean we 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:59.080 we figured that the shipwreck happens sometime around eight five 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:03.319 BC before common eras because mostly because of the dates 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:06.040 that we found. And I say we, but the explorers 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.520 found on the currency. Yeah, you know, sometimes Joe and 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:11.920 I we get we get tired of working on stuff 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:14.600 before thinking, we pop out to the Greek islands and 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:19.040 then just go well skin diving, yeah, you know. And X, 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:21.160 by the way, does mark the spot now, But we 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:24.480 by dating things like the currency, they have sort of 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.760 narrowed the ranged around five b C. But that that 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:30.599 doesn't necessarily mean that's how old the device is. No, 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.440 they think that the device is older than the wreck. 0:10:33.679 --> 0:10:37.400 It wasn't built like right before that. It's generally dated 0:10:37.440 --> 0:10:39.839 between a hundred and a hundred and fifty b C. 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.960 So it's thought of as a second century BC device, right, 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.880 So so it is an ancient device. Uh, that seems 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.280 to be about how old it is. Uh, we've got 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:53.120 some ideas of where it may have come from. There 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:56.840 were some No, we don't we don't have any The 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:00.280 instruction manual for this device was not anywhere to be ound. 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:02.800 It was not on the glove compartment of this shipwreck. 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.079 So we can't be absolutely certain. Uh. There's some speculation 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.400 that maybe it was the island of Rhodes, which was 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:13.000 known for its scholarship and also it's craftsmanship. But there 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.200 are some other options as well that we can talk about. 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:18.440 But beyond that, Um, you know, we've talked about what 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:20.880 was made of, we talked about how old it was, 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:23.480 but yeah, what what did this thing do? And at 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.400 first it was a real mystery. In fact, for like 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.240 we said, like a century, it was a mystery. We 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.640 just didn't have enough information to be able to determine that. 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.559 We had some wild guests. There were people who made 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:38.760 some good guess but they didn't know the full extent yet. Um, 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:43.319 and that they didn't realize initially how awesome this thing was. 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:45.559 You know, we can make an argument that this is 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:48.600 the oldest computer, which obviously means that it has to 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:50.880 do more than just have some inner work, inner working 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:54.320 gears that move smoothly. It has to do something beyond that, 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.840 because otherwise anything that was reliant on gears and clockwork 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.360 you could call a computer her. But we'll get into 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:03.840 exactly what it is that this thing did. That kind 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.960 of makes us consider it more of a computer device 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:13.080 and analog computer than some sort of interesting clockwork. Right. So, um, 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.480 but in general, what we understand it to have been 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:18.720 able to do, and in fact, we understand a lot 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.360 more about it in very recent years than we had 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.800 for the century leading up to it. Oh well, I'd say, 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:27.600 now we've basically had a slam dunk in this one. 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:31.040 Recent recent revelations have shown us, Oh, this is pretty 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.520 much exactly what it is. Yeah, which is phenomenal when 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:35.920 you think of how badly and repair this thing was. 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.920 But but ultimately what it does is it's it's a 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:45.360 device that not only tracks celestial events and the movement 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:50.079 of celestial bodies in relation to our perspective here on Earth, 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:53.080 it also predicts them. So in other words, you not 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:56.000 only can you uh, can you keep track of what's 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.440 going on, and it could give you an indication of 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:00.120 where you would need to look in the sky if 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:03.640 you wanted to see something like Mars. It also would 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.520 tell you that, oh, on this particular date, you will 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.840 have a full solar eclipse. It's kind of cool. Yeah. 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:14.200 In other words, an astronomical calculatory UM. And so what 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:17.520 it would do is it would have a position of 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:22.080 the Earth and then um by moving the hand crank, 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.440 which which no longer exists, but that's that's we figure. 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.240 It was a hand crank that that provided the the 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:33.120 kinetic energy to make everything turn. But by moving that 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.480 you could see at the same time, based on a 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:40.199 projected date in the future, the positions of the Sun, 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.600 of the Moon, um. Probably of the planets we don't 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.880 know the planet gears are missing right now, probably at 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.400 least the plants that the Greeks knew about, which included 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.520 the probably not the planets that probably not the we 0:13:54.679 --> 0:13:57.720 don't think well, not Neptune, Uranus or or if you 0:13:57.760 --> 0:14:01.440 want to be kind, Pluto. They they had identified as 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:04.160 far out as Saturn. Now, if in fact we were 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:08.240 to find evidence that it included these other planets as well, 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:09.880 that as far as we know, they didn't know about. 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:12.920 Then that would make the third part of our conversation 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.680 to get a little more interesting. It also had yeah, 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:18.960 as you said, an eclipse prediction dial uh and that's 0:14:19.000 --> 0:14:23.640 really cool. Uh. And it also predicted cultural events, so yeah, 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.840 that's true, like the Olympiad, right, because you had a 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.280 schedule of when that would take place, and so by 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:33.000 plotting it against this device and actually inscribing it on 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:35.800 the device, you could in a factor then you could 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:38.400 see what the what the celestial events were going to 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.160 be at a planned future event that way, which is 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.760 kind of handy. Um. But we'll talk specifically. We need 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:46.720 to really get into the nitty gritty of how this 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:50.520 is possible, and then we'll conclude at the end talking 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:53.840 about how we know all of this stuff, because, as 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.560 you're gonna learn, it's really complicated figure out how a 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.200 device works if you can't actually visualize all the gears 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:01.880 when you first get hold of it. Joe and I 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:04.520 will have more to say about the Antikithera mechanism in 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:06.920 just a moment, but first let's take a quick break. 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.200 All right, we're back, so let's talk about how this 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.520 device actually tracked celestial events. Okay, so we we know 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:22.760 they're all these gears. There's a hand cranky turn. It 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.640 moves things forwards that you can look at what the 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:29.960 celestial conditions are on any given date, or you can 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.800 even advance it so that you can look for a 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.600 specific celestial event. Let's say you're looking specifically for when 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.040 is the next eclipse going to occur? So you're not 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:42.800 looking to see what the celestial scott what the sky 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.480 is going to look like, um, three months from now, 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:47.040 you just want to know when the next eclipse is. 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.160 You could advance the handle from your date and keep 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:53.760 doing it until you saw the eclipse information come up, 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.120 and then compare that see what the date is on 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:58.520 the other part of the indicator. We'll talk about all 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:00.880 the different dials to be indicated by a dial, so 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.440 it's like it's like an analog clock face. You would 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.080 be spinning around a point to let you know when 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.200 this is coming exactly, and then you could say, oh, 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.000 all right, so the next eclipse is in you know, 0:16:11.360 --> 0:16:14.520 you know, three months and two weeks from now or whatever, 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:17.040 and uh So there's a lot of different ways you 0:16:17.040 --> 0:16:21.560 could use this. Well, um, there were about thirty thirty 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:25.640 one gears that we know of, probably at least at 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.640 least more or at least thirty probably more, though it's 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:30.960 I think hypothesized that there were more to deal with 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.360 the movement of the planets that that's just lost. And 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:36.440 you know, it's not a surprise because again, like I said, 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.400 when we call it bad repair, I mean you're you 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.000 think about this. This is like essentially the imagine a 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.480 clock that's been fused into one piece. I mean an 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:47.040 old style gear clock fused into one piece. That's kind 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.200 of and it's it's opaque, so you can't see these 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.520 gears that are on the inside just with the naked eye. 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.160 But we'll get into how we figured more about this 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:57.520 in a little bit. But so you had all these 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.000 different dials that would mark different of sense uh and 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:04.919 different time spans. Right, So you would have a dial 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.600 that would be set up for for just regular keeping 0:17:08.640 --> 0:17:11.639 of of a calendar year, but there were also dials 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:16.440 that were more attuned to specific celestial cycles. So for example, 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.320 there might be a nineteen year cycle that's represented by 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.480 one dial. Another one had I think a seventy five 0:17:23.600 --> 0:17:27.280 year dial, And these dials were to refer to things 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:31.240 that patterns that would repeat once you hit those time frames, 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.400 so like every nineteen years, this one set of pattern 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:38.399 would repeat itself. So that's why they have these different 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:43.560 dials to indicate exactly what's happening at exactly what time. Uh. 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.280 What I loved was the idea that there was one 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.960 gear specifically devoted to showing the phase of the moon, 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.000 So not only would you see the position of the 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:56.120 moon on any given date, but you would also see 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.720 what phase it was in, whether it was waxing or waning, 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.480 a new moon, full moon, what ever. And and uh, 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:04.760 I really thought that was very clever. So yeah, you 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.800 essentially either either refer to the dates and look at 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:12.560 the celestial events to compare the two, or you would 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:14.520 said it so that you would look at a specific 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.359 configuration of the celestial body and then look at what 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.320 date corresponded to it. It's um kind of amazing to 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:29.480 imagine the complex planning and craftsmanship that went into a 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:34.439 machine like this, because, um, when you start thinking about it, Okay, 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.160 say somebody set you down and told you to try 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.480 to build something like this, and you had you know 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:42.399 it was open book test, you knew what time frame 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:45.119 all these celestial events would occur in how would you 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:49.040 do it? Yeah, I mean God, so you would hit 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.640 some kind of figure out the relationships between the sizes 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:56.480 of gears um and the way they would interlock to 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:02.760 create fractional relationships between the movements of all the different 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:05.199 bodies at the same time. And keep in mind that 0:19:05.400 --> 0:19:08.400 if this thing is reflecting, say, planets and stuff like that, well, 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:11.639 from a geocentric point of view, the movement of the 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.480 planets is not just a simple circle, right, I mean 0:19:14.560 --> 0:19:18.000 you see them, they persiss and then they go backwards, 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:24.199 and the thing exactly so if you and there's a 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:27.439 fellow named Michael T. Wright who built a replica of 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.040 this device, and we'll talk more about him probably in 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.760 a bit, but he there's a great video that demonstrates 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:36.320 him using this machine to show the movement of these 0:19:36.359 --> 0:19:39.879 different elements and sometimes you see them moving kind of 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:43.600 backward compared to other elements, and you think, wow, the 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.040 gears have to account for that too. The gears have 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:50.920 to be able to do very complex movements of these uh, 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:53.720 these these arms that are on these dials in order 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.359 to reflect what is really happening. And while the model 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:02.639 itself uh does depict a geocentric view of celestial bodies. 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.400 We can't be sure that the person who built it 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:10.880 necessarily ascribed necessarily ascribed to a geocentric philosophy. Oh, that's 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:15.359 certainly true because for the devices function, I mean it was, 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:20.520 it was functionally geocentric, right, because we're perving from exactly 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.119 even if the person who made it actually thought the 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.040 Earth went around the Sun, it would still look the 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.200 same pretty much, because if you're reflecting how the world, 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.640 how the how the celestial you know, elements look compared 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.399 to being on the Earth, it makes no sense to 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:39.280 make it anything other than geocentric. So the heliocentric theories 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.840 had been placed ahead of when we think this device 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.399 was made. So it's possible we don't know, because there 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.360 were still people who who ascribed to a geocentric worldview. 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.520 I'd probably say that was dominant, Yeah, because because it 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.480 was similar to what we would see centuries later, where 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.879 to propose such a thing as a helos heliocentric review 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.520 view would mean that you might suffer a little bit 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:08.280 of let's say, you might get ostracized with extreme prejudice 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.080 that people didn't like here in that Yeah, So anyway. 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.280 You know, it does look like it was going to 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:16.440 show you not only the Sun and Moon's movements, which 0:21:16.480 --> 0:21:18.960 is already complex enough because they don't move at the 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:22.119 same you know rate, or you know they change positions, 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:26.080 uh differently relative to one another. Then to throw in 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:28.639 the other planets makes that or the plants that the 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:33.000 Greeks knew about, makes it even more complex. So here's 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:36.720 the question, does this count as a computer? I would 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:39.840 say absolutely. I would say so too, And I've got 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.320 a little argument here. Tell me what you think about 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.800 so um, I'd say the basic definition of a computer. 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:48.840 A lot of times it's included that it's electronic. But 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:51.520 let's take that part out and say, well, whether or 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:55.400 not it's electronic. Um, A computers like an interactive machine 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:58.600 that can and these words often come up, store, retrieve, 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:02.480 and process data. That's fair. Um. So it's like input, 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:06.119 output and processing and storage. Yeah. I always think of 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:11.199 it as something that can can take input, put it 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:14.359 through some form of algorithm, meaning a set of rules, 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:17.399 and then give you output on the other side. And 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:19.880 it's predictable. It's going to do that the same way, 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.040 like assuming that you put in the same input and 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:24.679 you're running it through the same algorithm, you're always going 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:27.720 to get the same output. Okay, so both definitions work 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:31.119 very well together. Yeah, I'd say the biggest distinction is 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:34.560 that today's computer as we think of as being general use. 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.840 So you you have hardware that can compute, but you've 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.879 also got software to boss the hardware around, so it 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:44.439 can tell it to compute in different ways. Right, So 0:22:44.480 --> 0:22:46.720 in that way, you can have a single machine allow 0:22:46.760 --> 0:22:49.600