At the opening of the twenty-first century, sponge divers plunged into the crystalline water off the coast of Greece. They brought up with them a strange object: a box that housed a sophisticated system of gears. This device, known as the Antikythera mechanism, would baffle scholars for decades. An astronomical tool, the mechanism is the first known machine that automated scientific predictions. A recent research paper from Nature suggests, “it could have automated many of the calculations needed for its own design—the first steps to the mechanization of mathematics and science.”
The complexity of its gears bespeaks an engineering prowess, specialized knowledge, and divisions of labor we prescribe not to the ancient, but to ourselves. “It challenges all our preconceptions about the technological capabilities of the ancient Greeks,” continues the Nature paper. Indeed, the Antikythera mechanism makes us rethink the uniqueness of modernity, history, and our own relationship with the past.
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