Message #38360

[Bianca]

The Antikythera could be considered the first analog computer. The team of experts from the U.K. and Greece discovered that its system of dials and more than 30 gears is more complex than those found in medieval clocks, according to the Nature article. It suggests that the Hellenic people were much farther along technologically than scientists, historians and archeologists had assumed.

The device, in other words, is at least 1,000 years ahead of its time.

So with one mystery solved, another one has presented itself. How is it that such an invention had no historical effect? What stopped the technology from being spread and perpetuated throughout the rest of the world?


Credit: Copyright of the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project