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When one looks in the box, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the cat.

Reactor

The Steampunk Workshop has nothing on the Greeks.

Wired reports that Michael Wright, a former curator of London’s Science Museum, has managed to singlehandedly reconstruct a replica of the Antikythera calculator, a machine dating back to at least 150 BC. (The Greeks were not messing around.)

Pieces of the machine were first discovered in ancient naval wreckage in 1902; scientists frowned and poked at them for 50 years before turning gamma rays on them, which helped cut through the barnacles to hint at the amazing machine that lay beneath.

 

The Antikythera mechanism, so called because no one wants to call it The Antikythera Device and hand out a free title for the next Bond movie, is a dictionary-sized collection of 37 dials that work together to calculate the movement of planetary bodies. It’s cross-platform (Greek AND Egyptian calendars!) and includes allowances for the erratic orbits of the five planets it tracks. It was used primarily as a calendar to gauge the timing of the next Olympic Games. Insert your own “guys and sports” joke here.

Below is a clip of Mr. Wright demonstrating the machine, in the middle of the world’s coolest-ever hobby room; it looks like the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Sebastian’s Blade Runner workshop had a kid.

To read up on the history of the Antikythera mechanism and get a little language practice, check out IL CALCOLATORE DI ANTIKYTHERA, an HTML labor of love reviewing the calculator’s history. Scroll down for English, or enjoy it en Italiano.

To nominate Michael Wright for the next Dr. Who, line up behind me.

[Image from the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project.]

About the Author

About Author Mobile

Genevieve Valentine

Author

Genevieve Valentine’s first novel, Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, won the 2012 Crawford Award and was nominated for the Nebula. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons, Journal of Mythic Arts, Lightspeed, Apex, and others, and the anthologies Federations, The Living Dead 2, Running with the Pack, After, and more.

Her nonfiction has appeared at NPR.org, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Weird Tales, Tor.com, and she is a co-author of Geek Wisdom (out from Quirk Books). She is an occasional columnist at Fantasy magazine, and sporadically updates her Twitter. Her appetite for bad movies is insatiable, a tragedy she tracks on her blog. More information can be found at www.genevievevalentine.com.

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