As a person who takes the Quran literally, I'm not at all surprised as it is stated that the ancients had been given much more, and we haven't been given a tenth of what they had. Samiya
> On 05-Dec-2014, at 2:17 pm, Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote: > > Which go in the direction that may be Archimedes could have found, or that > greeks would have emit much earlier, a Church-Turing thesis, and that without > the stopping of science/theology by the Roman Christians, the whole of > computer science could have been born much earlier. But in occident, science > and theology stopped at +500, and we entered the dark age, and we are still > in there, now. And if we continue to be blind on what happens in the > Middle-East, and elsewhere, we might well stay in the dark for one more > millenium. > > Well, to be sure, we don't have evidence that the antikythera mechanism is > authentically Turing universal, but it is sure that it is close. Very > impressive discovery. > > Bruno > > > >> On 05 Dec 2014, at 05:48, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote: >> >> For those who get into this kind of stuff. >> >> http://www.gizmag.com/antikythera-mechanism-date/35016/ >> World's oldest computer may be older than previously thought >> >> By David Szondy >> December 4, 2014 >> 3 Comments >> >> The Antikythera Mechanism is the world's oldest computer (Photo: Giovanni >> Dall Orto) >> Since its discovery over a century ago, the Antikythera Mechanism has had >> scholars scratching their heads over how the Greeks managed to build a >> mechanical computer a hundred years before the birth of Christ and thousands >> of years before anything similar. But now things have become even stranger >> as researchers claim that it's over a hundred years older than previously >> believed and may have been built by a famous hand. >> The Antikythera Mechanism was discovered in 1901 by sponge divers off the >> Greek island of Antikythera. At first, not much was made of it, but after >> the coral-encrusted, corroded mass of bronze gears was later studied using >> x-rays, gamma rays, and neutrons, and then reconstructed, it turned out to >> be something astonishing. >> The device at first was thought to be some sort of surprisingly early clock, >> but then it turned out to be the oldest computer known. In fact it was an >> analog astronomical computer based on the principle of the differential >> calculator that uses gear trains as a way of performing complex >> calculations. On further study, the device proved capable of calculating, >> among other things, the position of the planets, sidereal time, and eclipses. >> And all of this by using technology that was never realized to exist in the >> ancient world and after it vanished, didn't reappear until the 14th century. >> Even today the device sparks interest as the design is adapted to not only >> museum exhibits, but also watches. >> First reported in the New York Times, the new date for the Antikythera >> Mechanism is the result of work by James Evans, professor of physics at >> University of Puget Sound, and Christián Carman, history of science >> professor at University of Quilmes, Argentina. >> The new date is based on a reconstruction of the device made by John Steele >> of Brown University in 2008. This involved matching the calculations against >> Babylonian eclipse records and applying an analysis that took into account >> lunar and solar anomalies, solar eclipses, and lunar and solar eclipses >> cycles that might have been missing and other inaccuracies – not the least >> of which might have been caused by the fact that much of the device was >> never salvaged. >> By a process of elimination, Evans and Carman eliminated hundreds of eclipse >> patterns until a match was found that placed the earliest eclipse on the >> device matching the year 205 BC. According to the researchers, such a date >> not only places the manufacturing date perhaps a hundred years earlier than >> the previous date of about 100 BC, but also indicates that the mathematics >> used to design the device were derived from Babylonian methods rather than >> Greek trigonometry, which did not exist at that time. >> The researchers also put forward another tantalizing possibility opened by >> the new date. According to Cicero, there was a story that a device much like >> the one found at Antikythera was made by Archimedes and captured by the >> Roman general Marcellus after the sack of Syracuse and the death of >> Archimedes in 212 BC. It is remotely possible that it and the Antikythera >> Mechanism may be one and the same. The researchers emphasize that the >> correlation is conjectural, but it does suggest that the age of the device >> is not only now known, but that a famous name can be given to its maker. >> The results were published in the Archive for History of Exact Science. >> Source: University of Puget Sound >> >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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