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Episode 109 – The Antikythera Mechanism with Prof Xenophon Moussas

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I first came across the Antikythera Mechanism just over a decade ago. It is still the most incredible artefact from history. It is as out of place in our time as William Shakespeare using an Iphone or Vasco De Gama travelling in a speedboat.

The Antikythera Mechanism is a complex mechanical (clockwork) device that can determine the position of the planets and phases of the Moon and predict when solar and lunar eclipses will occur. Constructed about two thousand years ago, it was discovered in 1901.

The three wooded calendaric machines in the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavik

The three calendaric machines, made of wooden gears, from around 1780 in the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavik. They are grandchildren of the Antikythera Mechanism. References to Cicero’s text to the Antikythera are available here.

Perhaps the most recent and informative video by published by mathematician Tony Freeth is available on Youtube. A paper published by several active researchers, including Tony Freeth, was published in Nature. Investigation continues today. Underwater research continues today at the shipwreck site. Press release from June 2022. This interview was recorded in July 2022 in Athens during Cospar 2022.

Athens-based Professor Xenophon Moussas has been mesmerised by it since childhood. As a mathematician and a space scientist, he has been involved in using leading technology to reveal its mysteries. He is available for presentations on the Antikythera Mechanism and can be contacted via email xmoussas AT gmail.com.

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Episode 26: Antikythera Mechanism

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Everyone who comes across the Antikythera mechanism goes through a phase initially of disbelief and then the awe inspiring realisation that something almost from another world actually exists in ours.

Imagine William Shakespeare writing Hamlet using a laptop. Surely a ridiculous proposition he was about 300 years too early for that. He didn’t but today’s topic is just as incredible but thanks to the presence of physical evidence- true.

The bronze department of the Museum in Athens has a small device slightly bigger than a pocket dictionary which has spent 2000 years under the Mediterranean Sea. Its is a hand made hand operated mechanical mechanism which may have looked like a multi handed clock. This remarkably compact device can display the calendar, predict eclipses, illustrate the phase of the moon, indicate the position of most of the planets and even takes account of the precession of the lunar orbit. The mechanism is driven by a collection of precision gear wheels made in Greece about 100 BC and nothing like it would be made again for at least another 1000 years.

My thanks to members of the Manchester Astronomical Society who arranged this visit for Tony Freeth to come and talk to them, and Conway Mothobi of the Manchester Metropolitan University hosting the event where this recording was made.My thanks of course to Tony Freeth for making the time on the day.

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