Hewlett-Packard/X-Tek Systems
The 2000-year-old Antikythera mechanism, often described as the world’s first computer, was a sophisticated bronze device that modelled the cosmos. Researchers have assumed that pointers were used to represent celestial bodies, moving around a dial like the hands on a clock, but a new study suggests that these were instead shown using a series of bejewelled, rotating rings.
The machine dates to the first century BC and was discovered in a shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera in 1901. Scientists have spent more than a century decoding its battered remains, which include inscriptions, measuring scales and more than 30 bronze gearwheels.
Ken Condal Few things are as captivating as an orrery. First, the craftsmanship required to build this remarkable mechanical model is of the highest order. And like a globe, an orrery also serves a practical function. It shows you the relative positions of the planets in the solar system during a given year and month.
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The clockmakers George Graham and Thomas Tompion designed and built the first modern orrery in 1704, but astronomers and naturalists have been studying the movement of the planets for thousands of years. Explorers discovered one of the oldest examples of an orrery, the Antikythera mechanism, in the hull of a wrecked ship off the coast of Greece in 1901.