Discovery of 2000-year-old computer from ancient Greece has left everyone confused

While we consider computers to be modern inventions, certain findings challenge this notion. A 2000-year-old hunk of metal with gears was discovered near the island of Antikythera in Greece 120 years ago, causing people to rethink what we know about computers. This piece of metal, now believed to be the oldest known computer, was found among other artifacts in a shipwreck near the island, according to the BBC.

A team of sponge divers found marble statues, coins, vases, jewelry, and a corroded hunk of metal. "It was not recognized at all as being anything interesting," Tony Freeth, a professor at University College London expressed. "When it was discovered it was just a corroded lump about the size of a large dictionary." However, in 1902 gear wheels were found inside this chunk of metal and people were intrigued with the object. "This was the first shock because anything from ancient Greece shouldn't have gear wheels," Freeth added. "These were precision gears with teeth about a millimetre-long. And this was just completely shocking." The professor shared that the mechanism is a dedicated calculating machine.

"It uses bronze gear wheels to calculate the cycles of the cosmos- the cosmos being the Sun, the Moon, the planets against the stars," Freeth explained. If we were to wind it forward by 10 years we can know where the sun, the moon and the planets are going to be. There are several theories about why the ancient Greeks would have created such a sophisticated device. "I think it was conceived as a calculating machine that would calculate the astronomical theories they had. It would demonstrate how you could look ahead and say what's the position of the Moon going to be in the next five years," the professor pointed out. "You turn the handle and it will tell you almost immediately."

Freeth explained that mechanizing scientific theories was a significant advancement in ancient times, even if it seems less impressive today. To mechanize your scientific theories was a big thing in ancient times. The device has now been kept in a museum in Greece as per the outlet and has been split into 82 pieces. Major portions of the device are missing today. Only a third of the original structure remains including 30 corroding bronze gearwheels, as per indy100. Research conducted by the University College London involving 3D computer modeling and microfocus X-ray CT in 2005 has uncovered interesting things about the working of the device.

Researchers have called the machine a "creation of genius—combining cycles from Babylonian astronomy, mathematics from Plato’s Academy and ancient Greek astronomical theories." The astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera mechanism has inscriptions describing the movement of the Sun, Moon and the five planets known at that time as per the the scientists. The device gauged the moment of the celestial bodies in concentric rings as the ancient Greeks believed that the sun and the planets revolved around the Earth. Freeth even told BBC that the mechanism could predict eclipses as well as the variable motions of the moon. "It brought back the history of technology to a much earlier time," the professor remarked.