A Lego Replica of the Antikythera Mechanism 74
A user writes "The Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known scientific computer, built in Greece at around 100 BCE. Lost for 2000 years, it was recovered from a shipwreck in 1901. But not until a century later was its purpose understood: an astronomical clock that determines the positions of celestial bodies with extraordinary precision. In 2010, a fully-functional replica out of Lego (YouTube video) was built."
I must have this!! (Score:4, Interesting)
I need a parts list and build instructions. Anyone know if they did this? All we got was a Youtube video...
See "The Making of" too (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to be missed is the time lapse video [youtube.com] of the process of creating the video which was as fascinating as the model itself.
my scientific observation (Score:5, Interesting)
"A device is not truly understood until its function can be duplicated by Legos."
- Tumbleweed's Observation
More Information (Score:4, Interesting)
He had a website about his building complex lego machines at: http://acarol.woz.org/ [woz.org]
And specifically information about this one at: http://acarol.woz.org/antikythera_mechanism.html [woz.org]
Unfortunately, the site seems to be down but Google still has a good cache:
http://google.com/search?q=cache:acarol.woz.org/antikythera_mechanism.html [google.com]
http://google.com/search?q=cache:acarol.woz.org/acarol.woz.org [google.com]
Antikythera Reconstruction ? (Score:3, Interesting)
This has as much to do with the Antikythera mechanism as a software simulation. The mechanism has no differential gears, which are used on this lego construct because its creator played with them during his experiments with Babbage's Difference Engine. The beauty of the Antikythera machine lies in its pin-and-slot mechanism for modelling epicyclic trajectories which are of course nowhere to be found in this "reconstruction".
Re:As opposed to (Score:4, Interesting)