As reported on the BBC

If they can recreate one of those artifects and get it to work, how long before they will be commercially available.

It would be great for teaching science and the history of science

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See also: topic The Antikythera Mechanism, hiding in the ATM forum for mysterious reasons.

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What an amazing find! Such intricacy in design. Pretty damn advanced gearing system. Why on earth did such technology get lost for ~1000 years?

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Thats the same thing thats been uncovered since the 60's...wtf?

It's a damn stoneage atari console system cant u see?, where all the bear skin is rubbed off...no doubt... >:

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Astronomy is looking up... :)

Dark Ages?

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Probably.

Humans.

Although... Maybe this was the only one ever made, and it was in the shipwreck along with the person who built it, on the way to wherever to show it to someone important.

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"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

the way i understand it, a lot of high-tech stuff got "lost" when the Roman empire fell apart.
not that i think they had flying cars that ran off energy efficient nuclear fusion reactors or anything like that- but there is probably a lot of cool stuff that they had that is yet to be discovered or will never be discovered.
which brings up the question..
what if our modern civilization suddenly broke apart for some reason- how long would it take to get back to a similar level of advancement, and what cool stuff that we have now would be lost forever? and how would the people that discovered some of this stuff interpret it 2 or 3 milennia from now when some farmer stumbles across it in his field..

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By the way, this kind of slipped through-- I hardly think it could be used to predict solar eclipses, at least not that could be observed. It's very hard to predict where on Earth a solar eclipse will be visible, and I really don't think a bunch of gears can do it.

At that time they were probably satisfied with the probability of a solar eclipse on such and such a day, as the Chinese were with their calendrical calculations. After all, it takes time to get a bunch of people together to pound the drums and scare the dragon away!

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<<By the way, this kind of slipped through-- I hardly think it could be used to predict solar eclipses, at least not that could be observed. It's very hard to predict where on Earth a solar eclipse will be visible, and I really don't think a bunch of gears can do it.>>

To second the above post, it wouldn't be difficult. They couldn't predict the location of any given eclipse, but eclipses follow a pattern by date which, IIRC, was definitely known in the ancient world.

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But that's just it-- what does someone in the ancient world care if there's a solar eclipse several thousand miles away? How do they even know?

They probably don't.

But, they would be able to figure out that, given a certain situation or set of conditions, that sometimes a solar eclipse happens.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

Perhaps eclipses had some special significance to them. Or perhaps they just liked the numerical exercise; even today we do astronomical calculations for events we'll never see.

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All I'm saying is that the "predictive" capability of the mechanism, with respect to solar eclipses, would have been highly unreliable for the person using it, and most of the eclipses predicted by the mechanism would have been unverifiable, as they would have fallen on places on the Earth with which the individual could never be in contact (or they'd miss the Earth altogether). I am suggesting that if you look at, say, a computer program we would not use to predict solar eclipses, it will contain far greater complexity than could be built into the gears of an analog computer. Lunar eclipses are far more reproducible, as they happen for the whole planet Earth.

I resent this.

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I wonder if the ancients had any way of observing a partial eclipse of the Sun without blinding themselves?
Perhaps observing 'through a glass darkly' (or a polished metal mirror) or similar. In this way they could observe partial eclipses predicted by such a mechanism as well as total eclipses.

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Partial solar eclipses can be observed by looking at the sun's multiple images on the ground under a tree with leaves.

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"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

I'm hesitant to admit this, but I watched a solar eclipse without eye protection when I was a kid. It did not blind me.

Do not try this yourselves. People will think you're a geek

Oh? Then how many fingers am I holding up?

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"Those are the people that wonder how a thermos knows whether to keep something hot or keep something cold." ~ NeoWatcher

Of course you weren't frightened away by any of this, were you?

I do have to admire the ancients for their egotism in believing that their puny drumming could drive away an entity capable of devouring the Sun or Moon!

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The Daily Mail has picked this one up now

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Another bite at the cherry by the BBC

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It would be a nice table piece.

Another idea

www.longnow.org

It was only dark if you looked in dark places.

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I hope they do reproduce them, I'd buy one

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Dude! You're getting an Antikythera!

(Actually, I'd like one too.)

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Hey baby wanna see my Antikythera? Hahah

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It's unfortunate that its taken us this long to get where we are. I think civilizations just "peak" at a certain point and after that little or no technological progress is made.

Mostly because of a flawed worldview (The Romans were pretty full of themselves if you ask me, as is our current civilization) or simply a lack of resources.

You can't discover iron if you don't have the necessary ore to create it in your realm. You won't discover water wheels to generate electricity or grind wheat if you don't have waterfalls around.

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The Mayan's predicted the July 11, 1991 eclipse visible over Mexico City.