Antikythera Mechanism Predicted Eclipses 2000 Years Ago

Antikythera Mechanism Predicted Eclipses 2000 Years Ago

Antikythera Mechanism, the first "Orrery".

We are infatuated with the Antikythera Mechanism. 

What is the Antikythera Mechanism?

The Antikythera mechanism is a winding, gear driven bronze time keeping mechanism supposedly 2200 years old. It was found on the sea floor among the wreckage of a ancient Roman shipwreck off the coast of Antikythera, Greece. 

If it is true that this technology has been on the planet for 2200 years, where has this technology been? One might think we would have utilized this technology more or we would have seen the industrial revolution earlier? I have questions. Let's first look at what the Antikythera mechanism is.

This machine is more complicated than anyone could have ever imagined.

When wound, the Antikythera Mechanism turned gears that moved dials to account for the elliptical nature of the path planets take around the sun.  Longer than the 17-year cicadas of 2021, the Antikythera Mechanism accounts for the 19-year lunar cycle. As the moon spins around the Earth, and the Earth spins around the Sun, the moon will repeat its position in the night sky from Earth every 19 years.

The Antikythera Mechanism tracks this!

 

What is an Orrery?

When Isaac Newton discovered and wrote the Laws Of Motion, he provided humanity calculations that allowed scientists & mathematicians to calculate the motions of the giant planets in our solar system. With that calculated, humanity could predict the repeating cycles of our solar system with mechanical 3-dimensional clockwork mechanisms that display our solar system in 3-D and moving in relation to the sun and each other.

The mechanism that using correct gear trains can display in 3-D, demonstrate the position of and predict the positions of the planets and moons in our solar system is called an "Orrery".

An Orrery is a mechanical representation of the movement of our solar system. This is an orrery presented by YouTube Channel KenToonz

 

If you like that Ken Toons video check out his 
"Orrery Construction Time Lapse: Seven Moneths in Seven Minutes

Here is a link to an image of the actual Antikythera Mechanism as it is today at Smithsonian Magazine: 
Smithsonian Mag. Decoding the Antikythera Mechanism

Quick Link Resource: Brilliant woodworking recreations of A Wooden Antikythera Reproduction in Progress 

 

When Was The First Orrery Made?

Wiki will tell you that clock makers George Graham and Thomas Tompion built the first modern orrery around 1704 in England (Carlisle, Rodney (2004). Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries, p. 189. John Wiley & Songs, Inc., New Jersey. ISBN 0-471-24410-4.) Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Antikythera Changes Everything!

Where many have studied it was recent X-rays of the Antikythera Mechanism have unlocked a mind blowing secret of the device that could have been created by Archimedes.

The order and movement of the solar system were brought unto Earth, in our hands, for us to watch, on display when Isaac Newton? / Archimedes? created the first Orrery 2000 years ago.

A Shipwreck in Antikythera - Mindblowing Discovery 

One of the most amazing discoveries in sunken ships at the bottom of the seas was found off the coast of Antikythera. The story goes a young rookie diver fishing came upon what he thgought were bodies burried in the sand. He came to the surface screming about bodies in the sand. The older owner of the company dives down discovering wealths of Roman statues. Among amazing finds the most unique and intriguing find was not gold, jewelry, treasure chests of rubies, or coins, it was a geared mechanism that has become known as the Antikythera Mechanism.

Geared Notched Mechanical Driven Calendar 

The wooden box Antikythera Mechanism was a mystery from the start. People started studying it and for generations, scientists have investigated it almost every other year someone dedicated their life to it. But it was not until 2005 when SOSO was able to see the interior of the molded together brass and wood and layer by layer see what each layer held and thus identifying a web of gears all tuned to 

Microfocus X-ray Computed Tomography (X-ray CT) in 2005 decoded the structure of the rear of the machine but the front remained largely unresolved. X-ray CT also revealed inscriptions... https://www.nature.com/article...

 

Revealing the mechanism's secrets of its interior has demonstrated that the Antikythera Mechanism was one of the first Orrey's. It told the movements of the planets in gears made of brass & wood notched in numbers that calculated many years forward in time able to track future solstices. 

The video below is ready to play at the layered X-ray imaging part of the video, we skipped to the brilliant process that unlocked the Antikythera Mechanism's secrets. By focusing the XRay MM by MM through the Mechanism the scientist was able to literally see up the mechanism's vertical pins and count the numbers of teeth in the cogs.Once the scientist counted the teeth in the cogs he could tell what each pin was for. 

This machine is more thought out than we could have ever imagined. The Antikythera Mechanism when wound accounted for the elliptical nature of the path planets take around the sun.  Longer than the 17-year cicadas of 2021, the Antikythera Mechanism accounts for the 19-year lunar cycle; as the moon spins around the Earth and the Earth spins around the Sun, the moon will repeat its position in the night sky from Earth every 19 years, the Antikythera Mechanism tracks that.

The Orrery that accurately predicted eclipses 

Antikythera Mechanism Could Accurately predict Lunar Eclipses many years out. 

Please, watch some of these resources if you have not seen them yet. We are grateful for all the published materials and the people who diligently have worked so hard to discover, document, and publish information about a mechanism that literally rewrites how we understand our history of knowledge.

Here is One of the best Antikythera Mechanism Rebuild & documentary

Clickspring: https://www.patreon.com/clicks...

 

 

 

https://www.ablogtowatch.com/hublot-antikythera-sunmoon-watch-hands/

https://quillandpad.com/2018/0...

 

 

 

More Resources:

Michael Wright: built two recreations of the Antikythera Mechanism to size.  find links...

Tony Freeth: https://classics.stanford.edu/...  Studied and sized the gears - more...

 

https://arstechnica.com/scienc...