The Antikythera Mechanism

[wil]

From 2000 years ago a calculator? that wasn't matched for another thousand years?

The most recent icarnaiton

Follow the links...

tell me your thoughts about what they found, what they now think it is, how this technology came to be and what other technologies were lost for centuries...millenia?

[flowperson]

Hi Wil:

I've been following this story for a few years. It's actually one of many anomalies that have appeared over the years. First here's the livescience piece on the anitkythera:
http://www.livescience.com/history/0...hera_mech.html

Then there's this site that lists other anomalous artifacts that have been found:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/articl...ient_Artifacts

I used to work on a University campus where the State Geological Survey Department was also located. The state was a large volume coal and oil producer over the decades. Geologists were puzzled by the presence of a much corroded adjustable wrench which was found some years ago in a coal seam that was several hundred million years old. Most of these situations are hushed up and never see the light of day because of the many questions that they engender.

flow....

[sara[h]ng]

What I find difficult is that without being well-schooled in the area under contention (anthropology, geology, etc.) it's very hard to say whether the mainstream scientists or what have you, are ignoring the artifact because they know that it's a hoax of some kind, that they're ignoring it because the assume it's a hoax without actually looking and finding out, or if it's because it would upset some balance of who they are, for example, totally revolutionizing the science that they've spent their lives becoming versed in...

There's a few books that write about things like the relationship between Orion's belt and the Giza pyramids. One of them details places all over the world where ancient buildings seem to correspond with constellations. This could be accurate research and it could not be, I don't know. But I took this book and showed it to a professor of mine, a fairly famous Russian astronomist, physicist, etc., who the book had actually quoted. He borrowed it for a weekend and then returned it to me and said that it was a book with some very interesting ideas but that ultimately, much of the science was simply incorrect, as apparently, it had been written by journalists making suppositions, not scientists who knew how to accurately obtain and analyze the data.

Very frustrating. Here's a quote, that I think applies, from Richard Feynman, one of the Manhattan Project physicists, and a super cool guy who did a lot of work with early theoretical quantum physics, superstring theory, etc.

"Because of the success of science, there is, I think, a kind of pseudoscience. Social science is an example of a science which is not a science; they don't do [things] scientifically, they follow the forms-or you gather data, you do so-and-so and so forth but they don't get any laws, they haven't found out anything. They haven't got anywhere yet-maybe someday they will, but it's not very well developed, but what happens is on an even more mundane level. We get experts on everything that sound like they're sort of scientific experts. They're not scientific, they sit at a typewriter and they make up something like, oh, food grown with, er, fertilizer that's
organic is better for you than food grown with fertilizer that's inorganic-may be true, may not be true, but it hasn't been demonstrated one way or the other. But they'll sit there on the typewriter and make up all this stuff as if it's science and then become experts on foods, organic foods, and so on. There's all kinds of myths and pseudoscience all over the place.

I may be quite wrong, maybe they do know all these things, but I don't think I'm wrong. You see, I have the advantage of having found out how hard it is to get to really know something, how careful you have to be about checking the experiments, how easy it is to make mistakes
and fool yourself. I know what it means to know something, and therefore I see how they get their information and I can't believe that they know it, they haven't done the work necessary, haven't done the checks necessary, haven't done the care necessary. I have a great
suspicion that they don't know, that this stuff is [wrong] and they're intimidating people. I think so. I don't know the world very well but that's what I think."

~~~

Just in case I seem like I'm being a party pooper, I'd like to say in my defense that I actually really like this stuff. I love these non-mainstream ideas and interpretations about history and science, and I think that very often, the old school, big names in fields, need to loosen up and be able to accept that what they were taught is incorrect, in some cases, wildly so. I just wanted to express my frustration about not knowing whether or not I was a sucker to believe this stuff or a sucker not to.

[wil]

The two pictures I gathered and info I picked up were from NASA and CNN...not the Star...thought they were credible...haven't read where this one was a hoax...

Hoax thoughts?

[sara[h]ng]

Oh no, I wasn't saying that this was a hoax. I don't even think that the Antikythera mechanism is bizarre, it's just kind of cool. About the hoaxes, I was referring to the 'anomalous artifacts' that flow linked. They are pretty interesting but who's to say what's genuine and what's not, and what it all means...

[wil]

You mean those little south american brass airplanes, those were cool, and the spheres? Or the old handprints? Yes it would be wonderful if we had some more discussion...and then somewhere in his links I came across Openhiemer (nuclear scientist) when asked if the test that was publicized was the first nuclear explosion...and he said "Well ... in modern times of course" Leading to conjecture as to whether he was referring to the last time we destroyed ourselves.

I just look at this object and think of all the inventions that must have been in order to lead up to it...telescopes for example.

(of course it would be nice if medicinal science would start deeply investigating and start actively utilizing things like Chakra Cleansing as well yes? That whole field (apropo pun) is also looked at askance)

[sara[h]ng]

Originally Posted by wil

You mean those little south american brass airplanes, those were cool, and the spheres? Or the old handprints? Yes it would be wonderful if we had some more discussion...and then somewhere in his links I came across Openhiemer (nuclear scientist) when asked if the test that was publicized was the first nuclear explosion...and he said "Well ... in modern times of course" Leading to conjecture as to whether he was referring to the last time we destroyed ourselves.

I just look at this object and think of all the inventions that must have been in order to lead up to it...telescopes for example.

(of course it would be nice if medicinal science would start deeply investigating and start actively utilizing things like Chakra Cleansing as well yes? That whole field (apropo pun) is also looked at askance)

Yup.

[flowperson]

There is a relatively new area of science called chaos theory or the study of complex systems. I've read and written in the field, mostly informally, since the 80's. But I did have one article published as a result of my participation in a seminar on science and religion at the University of Chicago.

The seminal popular book in the field is Chaos, Making a New Science, by James Gleick a former NYTimes Science writer. A belgian chemist named Ilya Prigogine wrote another good one but I can't recall the title. Most of the real work is under cover of darkness at national labs and major universities and institutes. The entire field is about the cosmic conflict between order and disorder. In other words G-d stuff.

Science as it exists is a very well-ordered system. Small blips on the screen are just that. It takes brave and credentialed people in science to assemble enough of them these days to effect any real changes to the system. The things that I posted here I have read about more extensively elsewhere, so I doubt that they are hoaxes. I tend to think of them as anomalies in the existing system that have the potential to disorder the existing systems of theory and proof that we all rely upon for normalcy in the world these days. So the possibility if them being popularized anytime soon are minimal, but possible.

Societies have learned clubs. You must pass certain hurdles and initiations to get into the clubs and benefit from their perks and rewards. Anything that threatens these pillars of westernized society are banished from the realm. I don't see any of that changing anytime soon, unless another Galileo or Newton or Einstein is lurking out there somewhere.

flow....

[flowperson]

Sara:

I forgot to mention that Feynmann was one of my heros back in the day. Do you know that he made it a point to fly down to Rio every Carnival season before lent to dance and drum in the samba parades ? He thought that drumming was the primal communication medium of humans. He figured out lots of his theories concerning quantum chromodynamics and the interior symmetries of particles with inspirations and insights obtained from his "drumming" life.

flow....

[wil]

Originally Posted by flowperson

Societies have learned clubs. You must pass certain hurdles and initiations to get into the clubs and benefit from their perks and rewards. Anything that threatens these pillars of westernized society are banished from the realm. I don't see any of that changing anytime soon, unless another Galileo or Newton or Einstein is lurking out there somewhere.

If I recall correctly none of these three were members of those clubs either...all outsiders to begin with aye? Newton invented Calculus @ 19, and Einstien, with dyslexia and retarded early childhood development the theory of relativity @ 26....

[Caimanson]

Originally Posted by wil

If I recall correctly none of these three were members of those clubs either...all outsiders to begin with aye? Newton invented Calculus @ 19, and Einstien, with dyslexia and retarded early childhood development the theory of relativity @ 26....

Maybe the dyslexia was the gift that allowed great insight in the first place.

[flowperson]

I think you guys have it ! See... the disordered creates the new order. As it is in nature...so it also is in the human species. What a surprise...huh ?

flow....

[arthra]

I have been very impressed by the "mechanism" as well...what if we find out someone dropped it off from a time machine?

- Art

[flowperson]

Hi Art:

I didn't want to bring any of that stuff up since it is the blackest of the black subject matter, but electrogravitic manipulations are a distinct possibility that might explain the things described above. Or...maybe it was all done by a Connecticut yankee in King Arthur's court...Huh ?

If you haven't done so before, you should read Thomas Pynchon's book, Gravity's Rainbow. Some of it alludes to this stuff in literary terms.

flow....

[China Cat Sunflower]

Originally Posted by flowperson

Sara:

I forgot to mention that Feynmann was one of my heros back in the day. Do you know that he made it a point to fly down to Rio every Carnival season before lent to dance and drum in the samba parades ? He thought that drumming was the primal communication medium of humans. He figured out lots of his theories concerning quantum chromodynamics and the interior symmetries of particles with inspirations and insights obtained from his "drumming" life.

flow....

Yeah, I like Feynman too! He never did get to Tuva, though.

I find myself agreeing with Sara's reservations. I don't have the expertise to pick through and decide what's bunk and what isn't, and I'm reluctant to accept things I can't verify because they wind up in my spider web of facts that I build ideas with. I guess that's part of the reason I stick closer to metaphysics than physics. That way I can keep it philosophical!

Chris