Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 2000-year-old device which transformed our understanding of astronomy in ancient Greece. In 1900 a group of sponge divers found the wreck of a ship off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the items salvaged was a corroded bronze object, the purpose of which was not at first clear. It turned out to be one of the most important discoveries in marine archaeology. Over time, researchers worked out that it was some kind of astronomical analogue computer, the only one to survive from this period as bronze objects were so often melted down for other uses. In recent decades, detailed examination of the Antikythera Mechanism using the latest scientific techniques indicates that it is a particularly intricate tool for showing the positions of planets, the sun and moon, with a complexity and precision not surpassed for over a thousand years. With Mike Edmunds Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff University Jo Marchant Science journalist and author of 'Decoding the Heavens' on the Antikythera Mechanism And Liba Taub Professor Emerita in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Scholar at the Deutsches Museum, Munich Producer: Simon Tillotson In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production Reading list: Derek de Solla Price, Gears from the Greeks: The Antikythera Mechanism (American Philosophical Society Press, 1974) M. G. Edmunds, ‘The Antikythera mechanism and the mechanical universe’ (Contemp. Phys. 55, 2014) M.G. Edmunds, ’The Mechanical Universe’ (Astronomy & Geophysics, 64, 2023) James Evans and J. Lennart Berggren, Geminos's Introduction to the Phenomena: A Translation and Study of a Hellenistic Survey of Astronomy (Princeton University Press, 2006) T. Freeth et al., ‘Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera mechanism’ (Nature 454, 2008) Alexander Jones, A Portable Cosmos: Revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, Scientific Wonder of the Ancient World (Oxford University Press, 2017) Jo Marchant, Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World’s First Computer (Windmill Books, 2009) J.H. Seiradakis and M.G. Edmunds, ‘Our current knowledge of the Antikythera Mechanism’ (Nature Astronomy 2, 2018) Liba Taub, Ancient Greek and Roman Science: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2022)
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Hello.
The Antikythera mechanism is one of the greatest discoveries in the history of marine archaeology.
Even though when salvaged in 1901 it seemed like just a lump of corroded bronze.
It came from a 2000 year old wreck discovered by Greek sponge divers.
And it was only when this dull lump broke up that its secrets began to be revealed.
It turned out to be an analog computer of a complexity otherwise lost from the ancient world and not appearing again until the Middle Ages.
And it challenges our ideas of how advanced the peoples of that era really were.
With me to discuss the Antikythera mechanism are Mike Edmonds, Emeritus professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff University, Libertau Professor Emerita in Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge and Visiting Scholar at the Deutsch Museum, Munich, and Joe Marchant, science journalist and author of Decoding the Heavens on the Antikythera Mechanism.
Joe Marchant I've called it an analog computer.
Can you describe what this object was in outline and what it would have looked like?
It was one of the most sophisticated and complicated objects that we have that survives from the ancient world.
If you imagine a wooden box about the size of a shoebox filled with bronze gear wheels, so looking like clockwork, little bronze gear wheels with teeth all driving each other around, handle on the side to turn it, with dials on the front and the back.
And it was essentially a.
A model of the universe, a little portable cosmos.
It's been described as.