The world's first computer, which
is about 2,000 years old, wasn't just used by ancient Greeks to chart the
movement of the sun, moon and planets - it was also a fortune telling device,
say researchers. The 2,000-year-old astronomical calculator, the Antikythera
Mechanism, is a system of intricate bronze gears dating to around 60 BC, used
by ancient Greeks to track solar and lunar eclipses. It was retrieved from a
shipwreck discovered off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901, but a
decades-long study has only now announced new results. While researchers had
previously focused on its internal mechanisms, the study is now attempting to
decode minute inscriptions on the remaining fragments of its outer surfaces.
Its ancient engineers may have
also given in to a less scientific urge - man's perpetual curiosity about what
the future holds. Researchers say the device was probably made on the island of
Rhodes and do not think it was unique. It's only unique in the sense that it is
the only one ever found. Slight variations in the inscriptions point to at
least two people being involved in that, and there could have been more people
making its gears. More than a dozen pieces of classical literature, stretched
over a period from about 300 BC to 500 AD, make references to devices such as
that found at Antikythera. The calculator could add, multiply, divide and
subtract. It was also able to align the number of lunar months with years and
display where the sun and the moon were in the zodiac.
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