Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I suppose you already knew this

But I sure didn't. Ian Sample, writing in The Guardian on Thursday, November 30th 2006 (and updated October 11th 2007), writes about the 2000-year-old computer salvaged from a Roman shipwreck that has been reconstructed. Turns out to be a highly sophisticated astronomical calendar "capable of tracking with remarkable precision the position of the sun, several heavenly bodies and the phases of the moon." It is suggested that it dates back to 150-100 BCE and, among other things, can track the irregular orbit of the moon. A truly fascinating story and mind-bending discovery.
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1 comment:

  1. Robert Runté7:00 a.m.

    I don't know. I have a bit of a problem with reconstructions. There have been a lot of examples over the years where archeologists have reconstructed some article from pieces they found lying close together and gotten it completely wrong...like the musical instrument attributed to ancient Sumer which turned out to be just two regular ones crushed together. Though in this case, it looks more clearly like a piece of equipment lost by a careless agent of the crosstime enforcers...

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Vice-President Cheney still gets cheers when he trots out the line about the United States not needing a 'permission slip' from the UN to attack countries it suspects of evil intentions towards America. The problem that is practically invisible from inside the United States is then that other countries don't need 'permission slips' to invade their neighbours, either. They can just announce that they have uncovered a grave threat to their security in some other country -- they don't actually have to prove it, any more than the United States did -- and then they are free to invade it. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Gwynne Dyer