“Apple software engineer Andrew Carol has rather impressively put together a replica of the ancient Antikythera Mechanism – built entirely from Lego.
The mechanism, constructed around 80BC, was recovered from the wreck of a cargo ship off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901, but wasn’t until 2006 revealed to be a planetary motion calculator.
Carol has, with a big bucket of Lego and the backing of Digital Science, demonstrated how the contraption may have been used to calculate eclipses:”
Via The Register (Thanks Duncan)
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I made a digger
I can’t stop wondering how many gears there must be in my MacBook…
Building such a device seems like it would be a rather trivial task for anyone with strong math skills and a basic understanding of gears. Isn’t it just doing some very simple modular arithmetic? The video makes it seem so dramatic… perhaps I’m missing something.
This is quite an impressive thing.
(Cheers on the blog by the way, it’s really one of the few I actually care enough about to read regularly)
knocks it up??? i believe this is the first known case of cybermiscegeny! :0
*Accidentally puts a piece in the wrong place*
*Tries to take said piece out*
*Whole thing collapses*
FFFFUUUUUUUUU-
Best I’ve ever done is a big long continuous tower of lego until I run out of legos to build with.
nonsense!!
Julien, it is the inception-type dramatic music that makes it look impressive. And the fact that people from 800BC knew how to calculate such things.
lately i’ve become totally fascinated with the realization that every modern day creature comfort has some form of analog mechanical, and later electro-mechanical, ancestor. becoming aware of these precursory technologies, shwooo, just does wonders for the imagination.
That is incredible. It says something about the evolution of human knowledge that someone was able to say ‘Building such a device seems like it would be a rather trivial task’.
This is exactly why it is amazing – not only did the ancient Greeks achieve a feat that was 1,600 years ahead of time, but the modern world can replicate it with a CHILD’S TOY. Using maths that is widespread knowledge.
What was once the domain of the greatest thinkers of the time is now a high-school project.
Cor blimey. I used to love building gearboxes out of lego. Wish I had thought of this.
Next – Babbage’s Engine, made of spaghetti and matches.