This
might come as a shocker to most of the people. There was a ‘mechanism’
similar to a computer long before the father of computer Charles Babbage was even born. The world’s oldest computer, ‘Antikythera Mechanism’, as it is being called, dates back to 2 millennium BC.
The Antikythera Mechanism is a type of an analog computer which could
predict eclipses and record the dates for the ancient Olympics to serve
the purpose of designing a Greek calendar. The archaic artifact having a
clock mechanism and constituting of about 40 hand-cut bronze gears was
discovered from the Antikythera Roman cargo shipwreck off the Greek
island of Antikythera.
The device which shows the ingenuity and the astronomical
advancements of the people back then was capable of tracking the
movements of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Scientists have
scanned the world’s oldest computer to find that the Antikythera
mechanism even had ‘instructions to use’ on its wooden casing
(13 inches x 7 inches x 3.5 inches). It had a single dial which showed
the Greek zodiac and Egyptian calendar at the front and two dials at the
back that gave information about lunar cycles and eclipses.
The device could predict the Saros cycle as well which is a period of
18 years after which the sun, moon and the earth return to the same
relative positions. Now, that is real genius!
So, that is about Antikythera computer. But the term ‘mechanism’
refers to the Babylonian arithmetic and has traces of Archimedean
mathematics, thus making it the world’s oldest calculator as well.
Scientists have admitted that Antikythera Mechanism was the most
advanced and complex device which would be created in the coming 1000
years. The computer is said to be built during the time when Romans were
controlling most parts of the Greece.
Antikythera Mechanism was found in the 148 ft shipwreck by a group of
Greek sponge divers. It was considered too advanced for its time and
most of the archaeologists thought it to be prochronistic. Later,
through radio carbon dating the truism of the world’s oldest computer
came into light. The most recent reports suggest the device to be
created in 205 BC.
These pieces of evidence show how much ahead of their time the people
were back then, and we have had records of the intricate surgeries
performed and similar other astronomical devices’ evidences (in Indian
Civilizations) during that time which just reiterates the fact.