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[edit] Oldest complex mechanical device?
The Origins paragraph begins "The mechanism is NOT the oldest known complex scientific instrument." I removed the bold and capitalization because that is obviously not proper formatting for an encyclopedia. The bigger issue, though, is something I can't edit myself: whether or not it is the oldest complex scientific instrument. It is clear that the NOT has been added in the last few edits. If it is not, this still needs to be editted, because you have a thesis statement which has nothing to do with the rest of the paragraph. Whoever believes it not to be the oldest device of this sort needs to point us towards what is. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and delete "not", since it is not being backed up with anything. Can anyone weigh in on this? Conical Johnson (talk) 19:02, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
- Good call. Seems like some type of vandalism. Dr.K. (talk) 00:02, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
[edit] original article of D. J. De Solla Price
hello, we need a reliable link to Price's original article on the Scientific American as the old link is not valid anymore.Anyone has knowledge of other links?
[edit] Greek translation again
Re. this round of reverts [1] - I was honestly not aware of the previous discussion, but having checked it, I cannot see any meaningful consensus for keeping the Greek translation was established. The only reason the "mediation" ended the way it did was that reasonable people withdrew from a dispute where the importance of the issue stood in no relation to the persistence of the other side. That's probably what I'll do too, but just for the record, I fully agree with ChrisO, Wareh and Mikka back then. There's no good reason for keeping the Greek translation, it's poor practice and looks unprofessional. Tassos, if you must persist and revert, I won't stop you, but please don't cite that old discussion as if it had established some consensus in your favour. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
- Hi FuturePerfect. Thanks for the opportunity to clarify this. I am not trying to imply consensus, as it is clear after reading the arguments pro and con, that Mikka and I essentially agreed that the matter was not worth pursuing further and the rest of the participants agreed to this. I simply wanted to point the past debate to your attention to avoid any arguments over the edit summary fields and to hopefully avoid opening a new debate. Τάσος. (Dr.K. 05:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC))
- Okay. Well, sorry, but I will re-open it. Back then, Mikka, SteveBaker, ChrisO, and Wareh all told you they thought the translation was really useless and not in line with what we normally do. Now I'm telling you the same. Five to one. Everybody has just been too polite to press the matter against your insistence, but on the merits of the issue it's always been essentially a "consensus-minus-one" against the inclusion (you being the "minus-one"). If the matter is so minor, don't you think it might be time for you to take the other people's opinion on board and let us remove it? Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:24, 17 October 2007 ~~ (UTC)
- I'd just like to reiterate my original position that the translation is useless - it doesn't tell us anything more than that the Greeks use the same term as everyone else for the Antikythera mechanism. What value is given to the reader by telling them that? -- ChrisO 08:01, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
Well here I am doing what I feared most: Rehashing the old debate: So I'll do it by cutting and pasting sections of the old debate to this: Quote:
It costs Wikipedia about a millionth of a US cent to store and transmit it - and we've just blown that by writing all of this debate. However, this edit war is a waste of everyone's time and the argument needs to end here and now so that the protagonists can spend their precious Wiki-hours doing something more productive. IMHO: Leave it in there...it's not actually hurting our readership or the guy who doesn't want it there. SteveBaker 18:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC) I agree entirely with your comments, I'm just pointing out that Tasoskessaris is mistaken in his assertions. :-) -- ChrisO 19:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Do I need to copy and paste the arguments pro and con as well? Dr.K. 12:05, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
- But I do have to recognise that all of the participants in this debate are gentlemen: You Future, Steve Baker, ChrisO, Wareh and Mikka. Let's therefore have an agreement: To quote Mikka (from the old debate), let's take this to the Village Pump. Their decision will be final. Fair? Dr.K. 12:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
- I don't really see what the village pump has to do with it. It's a decision to be made about just this article, so whatever discussion needs to be done can be done here. The village pump doesn't normally "decide" things. Of course, if you want more outside voices, we can try to get a few; the normal way would be an RfC. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
- Sure Future. Sorry about the Village suggestion. I just took it from Mikka and didn't really examine its function in depth because I don't examine things in depth if they have to do with process. Process logistics is not my cup of tea so to speak not to mention that I trust capable administrators like yourself to take care of these things so that I can write about things I have fun with. Let's clear this matter up so that everyone goes home happy at the end of the day. Thanks for your assistance and if it's not too much trouble can you start it up and let me know what happened? I'll try to participate in this forum but with one caveat: I can't repeat things I said before. So could you tell everyone to read up on the past discussion? Thanks for your elegant approach to this and take care. Dr.K. 18:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
- Okay, I'll put up an RfC flag and see if anybody comes to comment. Just for the record, I've checked Wikipedia precedent again, by looking at various articles in Category:Archaeological artefacts, and the common practice seems to be clearly not to include translations in local languages if these are simple translations of descriptive phrases rather than proper names. The precedent quoted back then, Phaistos Disc, has had the Greek translation removed in the meantime. An interesting exception-that-proves-the-rule is Kurgan stelae - it has local terms, but it does so because these are exactly not simply translations but different names. The only (isolated) real exception I could find was Pyxis of Čierne Kľačany. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
- Excellent framing of the issue/background. Great aesthetics also. I loved the lightbulb. Thanks again Future. Dr.K. 20:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
- Sorry, I was in a bit of a hurry so I didn't see all your message. Thanks for the info. It's very fitting that you divulged the information about the only exception. It is a very honourable thing to do, especially because it is an obscure article. Well done. Take care. Dr.K. 21:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
There is a (minor but long-standing) disagreement over whether the lead should contain a translation of the term used for the article subject in the local language of where it was found and kept, i.e. Greek. There was a previous discussion about this last year, see above under #Mediation. Main arguments then and now were:
- Pro: It's useful practical information and in line with Wikipedia conventions of allowing local aliasses in article leads (as e.g. in placenames)
- Contra: It's not a local divergent proper name, but merely a literal translation of a descriptive phrase, and as such useless since Wikipedia is WP:NOT a dictionary.
Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Alan Partridge
User:217.130.15.170 tried to remove "Alan Partridge" from the article, but I added it back in as it has been there since 23:01, 5 January 2007, originally added by User:Martin Allen [2] and appears to be a legitimate ref. —Viriditas | Talk 10:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Which date?
I am looking for somewhere to flag a conflict between the page on the Antikythera wreck and this one. The wreck page has the original find happening in October 1900 -- Price and quite a few other sources agree with this page in dating it near Easter. I am not qualified to comment or pontificate, so I just flag. McManly 07:54, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Mass production?
Are there any plans to mass produce reproductions of this thing? It doesn't seem like it would be very difficult or expensive with modern technology. It would be a lot more interesting that most of the useless bric-a-brac people have. Do people know enough about how it works to create working copies? Herorev (talk) 06:12, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I guess it would be a kinda cool gizmo thing to have around your house but if you read the section about the investigations and reconstructions nobody is really sure how it worked. The image with the one reconstruction is just the most plausible working one i guess but they could mass produce that i suppose. --Deo Favente (talk) 15:16, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Origins
I'm new at this, so I thought I'd put my thoughts up here rather than dive into editing. I'm aware that it's a very active area of research. This section repeats or conflicts with some of the information in the introduction. It also seems a bit muddled:
- Rome's "Conquest of Greece" usually refers to the destruction of Corinth in 146BCE. There's no reason to mention it in relation to this ship, which was carrying coins from Asia Minor dated to about 65BCE and therefore must have sunk in that year or later.
- Posidonius founded his school on Rhodes in 100BCE; Hipparchus died in 120BCE. In about 45BCE Cicero talks about Posidonius recently having a device that might have been like the Antikythera mechanism. The case for Rhodes being where the device was made more than one sentence.
- AFAIK there's no particular reason to think that the looting Roman was Julius Caesar; he could have been Pompey. It's even possible that this was just an ordinary merchant ship with a very mixed cargo. Trade and travel did still happen in this period, in spite of piracy and wars.
Kytaline (talk) 14:31, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
Does any evidence suggest that the device was made bu the people listed? It looks like someone grabbed a list of the thinkers of the time and attributed it to them. By that logic, Carl Sagan may have invented the Internet. In all likeliness, it was invented by someone who was lost to time. 209.191.205.44 (talk) 00:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
- I wouldn't worry about this too much. If all these researchers, conferences, published papers, museums, organisations, institutes, companies etc. have reached a consensus that this is a Greek invention it would be too hard or impossible for an individual to prove them wrong. So by default I tend to believe them. Dr.K. (talk) 04:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
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- Sorry to just post a link without adding much to the discussion. Probably this IHT article may deserve also publication in the main 'pedia article, but I'm a bit too busy right now... Anyway... It does shed some light (or add some more doubts...) on the origins too. Regards--129.192.97.6 (talk) 13:43, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Greek or Egyptian?
I find these two passages to be confusing when juxtaposed:
"Based on the shape of the Egyptian letters used in the manual of the instrument. . . . All the instructions of the mechanism are written in Greek."
Was the manual written in the Greek language using Egyptian letters? Either way, I think this could be written more clearly, because at present it's confusing. --Skb8721 (talk) 13:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Accidental Duplicate
- I had the same impression - the article contradicts itself. I'm fairly sure that the instructions were written in Greek only. Fuzzform (talk) 14:00, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
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- It is in Greek only. The Egyptians month names are given in Greek transcription, a common practice of the Hellenistic astronomers Kadros (talk) 15:42, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Suspect it is for Navigation Anyway
Given that many ancient cultures considered eclipses to be "bad omens", being able to predict an eclipse would be extremely handy for trading purposes, which was the main driver of navigation among ancient cultures. The last thing one would want is to pull into a foreign port and be accused of "stealing the sun" or some such thing which would likely result in finding yourself sacrificed to the local gods to "bring back the sun". So I don't see the fact that it can predict eclipses as a barrier to it being a navigational instrument, particularly when taken in the cultural context of the societies that they were trading with at the time. Furthermore, there are also quite a few stories of "impressing the locals" by being able to predict eclipses, not the least of which was Columbus. It seems to me that this would be handy, possibly essential, information for a trading operation crossing cultural boundaries.
As for the argument about the materials, many of these materials were routinely carried over long sea voyages without any noticeable degradation which means that they had some way to prevent the salt air from destroying the metal. Bronze weapons, statues, etc. were routinely shipped and I can't imagine anyone paying good money for jewelry, a statue or a weapon that's corroded from a long sea voyage. So the obviously had some method of protecting these items while at sea. If those items could be protected, those same methods could easily have been applied to this item, which is considerably smaller than the bronze statue found on board the same ship.
72.34.191.208 (talk) 01:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)Morrghu72.34.191.208 (talk) 01:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
- Actually salt corrosion would be much, much more of a concern for a mechanical device that employed large numbers of small gears than for a large statue with no moving parts. Also, of course the statue would be shipped as cargo, and therefore could be wrapped up or boxed or protected in some other way for the whole voyage, whereas if this mechanism were needed for navigation they would have had to use it frequently during the voyage, thus exposing it to the elements. Fumblebruschi (talk) 22:06, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
[edit] time for section re-write, I am thinking...
Check this out. Pretty awesome. :) - Arcayne (cast a spell) 05:37, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
- Interesting indeed, but keep it short and sweet (certainly not its own section). This article is intensely unfocused and I've been considering a rewrite at some point. Since this article's inception much has been discovered about the mechanism and we're now at a point where we can write something concrete about its function and general origin rather than toying around with academic crystal ball-gazing. This recent article should provide a good start. Sillyfolkboy (talk) 05:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
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- Only one loose end that bothers me, is stating that the original device was made with recycled materials. To me that's an indication that there are unexplained markings that were written off by saying they were left over from when the parts were used in something else. However, all we can do is use what we have. The working of the mechanism seems sound at least. 2ndAmendment (talk) 07:30, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
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- I assume you've all seen the latest information in Nature? In addition to a research paper a few weeks ago, they've also put up a pretty interesting video. I posted a blog item on this yesterday, it contains the refs. --Chris Jefferies (talk) 12:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
- I see that a short bit has been added to the article. As the mechanism has been 'deciphered', perhaps a bit more expansion is called for, as well as a notation in the Lede? - Arcayne (cast a spell) 15:39, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
[edit] " world's first analog computer'
I removed this claim once, but it has been reinserted. Although we have no evidence for earlier similar devices, it seems vastly unlikely that there were none, and that a device of this complexity was the first analog computer. Indeed, much the same point is made by the cited source [3], which as far as I can see does not claim that this device was the "first" (although it does say "first example of such gearing yet discovered"), but does say: "it is difficult to believe that the Antikythera device is a unique piece of antiquity". Does anyone disagree? EdwardLockhart (talk) 07:45, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
- I had added it again, as the source (and many other sources as well) called it such. We cannot superimpose our own knowledge over that of the source, as that is verboten here. If we can find a source that more appropriately terms it as an early computer and not the first computer, we can place the previous citations into perspective. Unfortunately, until someone citable says that, neither can we. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 14:26, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
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- The article says "world's first analog computer". I don't think that's from the cited source. The closest I can see is "first example of such gearing yet discovered". Could you provide the exact quote you're relying on? EdwardLockhart (talk) 16:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. The sticking point for at least one (8) of the sources is the descriptor of the term "analog" in relation to computer. However, all of them are in agreement that - at least currently - it is the first analog computer. - Arcayne (cast a spell) 18:19, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
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- Thanks for the links; I've added the NY Times one as a reference, since it actually uses the phrase "first analog computer", and cited Martin Allen on the opposite view (that it very likely had predecessors). I hope that's satisfactory, and that both viewpoints are adequately presented. EdwardLockhart (talk) 19:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
- I will check the article after I post this, but I am sure that it is okay, Edward. You have been most polite and gracious in this discussion, and I wanted to make a point of thanking you for that. Recently, I have been exposed to the polar opposite of that, and it is disheartening that it is allowed. Thanks for restoring my faith a little bit. Have a splendid weekend. :) - Arcayne (cast a spell) 20:47, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
[edit] hoax controversy
There should be a section listing the controversy over whether this is a hoax! 79.122.38.222 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC).
There's a two page article in FT250, I'd be more than happy to email scans of it to anyone who wants to read it and/or possibly include stuff from the article on this. Not really sure how the FT stands as a credible source. The article posits Geminus as a possible builder of the mechanism. Anyhoo, I'll hold on to it for now... Fol de rol troll (talk) 00:07, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
- I'd be interested in seeing it. If you send me an email I'd be happy to take a look. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:10, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
