« What's In Your Portfolio? | Main | The Foucault Funk »

August 2, 2008

Antiquity in the Garden of Good and Evil

Scientists unlock mystery of 2,000-year-old computer

As reported in 2006 by the CBC (i.e., Canada, yesterday) a then-recent study in the journal Nature had revealed the device known as the Antikythera Mechanism to be actually a complex means of tracking the movements of astronomical bodies for use in navigation.

As reported in 2008 by the American newspapers (i.e., USA TODAY), the same device, known as The Mean Sun Wheel, held 30 bronze gearwheels marked with instructions, allowing the user to link the cycles of the heavens to "the very mundane Greek games" (i.e., the Olympics).

Tthat particular usage, scholars believe, was primarily by wealthy sponsors of the games, for scheduling purposes -- putting the wheel in the same class of "information technology" as satellites, but not in the same class as television broadcasting, with which advertising spawned the Olympics Hype Cycle -- used for tracking the movements of earthly bodies -- nowadays far more important than a mundane thing like weather.

The only question here is already asked and answered: whether the 2,100 year old Mean Sun Wheel, given that it still works and all and doesn't even need batteries, can hold its own against a much bigger machine: marketers. Marketing's vanguard, the American press, took two years to find something in it that rated worth mentioning again. Maybe it's time to move to Canada.

Posted by Malcolm Ryder at August 2, 2008 11:02 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.malcolmryder.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/365

Comments

Post a comment