Utterly amazing! Thanks for the pointer. Am I correct that all of the gears are circles -- i.e., no elliptical or other weird shapes ? (Yes, there is also a spiral, but that seems to be more for compactness than necessity.) This mechanism is every bit as sophisticated as many of the clocks of the Middle Ages or the Renaissance, except that it doesn't have its own energy storage & regulation scheme. I gather that the Greeks had not mastered the storage capabilities of the coiled spring? The Romans had pretty good metal working skills; did they master the spring? The book has not yet been released; it is expected out in Jan. 2009; you can preorder from Amazon: http://www.decodingtheheavens.com/ At 03:39 PM 12/17/2008, Simon Plouffe wrote:
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/121708-antikythera.html?hpg1=bn
Hello,
that guy made a working model of that calculator, it is surprinsingly complex. it uses gears and a lot of ingenuity to construct this device, it is 2000 years old.
simon plouffe