In one of Richard Feynman’s books, (one of my favorite authors, Nobel prize winning physicist, and amazingly prescient person) he recalls visiting a museum in Greece with his wife, and while browsing through the great works of art, fine statues, and beautiful Urns, he came across a stunningly complex device. Fascinated, he asked more about it. It was so complex that he thought it might have been a fake. The Museum curator, scoffing at the American finding fascination in the machine but not in the statues, could find only three published articles on the device, all from Scientific American, and all from Americans. It was found in a ship wreck, and physically appeared to be the age it was. The point of Feynman’s story was as much about the fascinating device as it was the modern Greek Culture, which practices a modern form of ancestor worship and reverence, frequently deriving self worth from the accomplishments of long dead ancestors. The common attitude, Feynman thought, seems to be that if the ancient Greeks didn’t come up with it, it wasn’t worth coming up with, and everything come up since then is hardly more than gadgets and distractions. I made a mental note when I read Feynman’s book to look into that device further, fascinated with ancient technology as I am.

Recently the New York Times science section ran this article “An Ancient Computer Surprises Scientists” (Registration required) After reading the name of the device I thought that’s a very Greek sounding word and that perhaps this is the device that Richard Feynman was talking about. Indeed it was the same device, and Feynman’s marveling at it’s complexity is yet another magnificent example of his prescience. The device, A complex geared clock looking mechanism, appears to have been used to calculate lunar cycles and planetary phases. As this article details, the device has now been examined with the latest high-resolution imaging systems. The team examining it, made up of British, Greek, and American researches were able to decipher many of the inscriptions and reconstruct the gear functions, revealing “an unexpected degree of technical sophistication for the period” In fact it is a degree of technical sophistication not rivaled for over 1,000 years. The Antikythera Mechanism is considered the worlds first computer and was probably not matched in complexity until some of the devices of the Islamic scientists of around 1000 AD.

Around the time this device was constructed, another Greek scientist invented the first rudimentary steam engine. Capable of such miraculously complex dvices, the Greeks themselves were not rivaled in science for over 1,000 years and in philosophy I would argue for perhaps another 2,000 years.

Enigma of Ancient computer http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/889

Image of the Device and artists rendition

The Antikythera Mechanism Links http://www.giant.net.au/users/rupert/kythera/kythera6.html

An Ancient Computer Surprises Scientists http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/science/30computecnd.html?ex=1322456400