The Antikythera mechanism.

[Bill Walker]

This artefact was among wreckage retrieved from a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island Antikythera in 1901.
The ship was from circa 200 BC.
It must have been built before the shipwreck.
This thing that tracks the planets had 37 cogs. It is the oldest known example of an analogue computer used to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance.

The first cogs were thought to have been invented hundreds of years later.
So who the hell made this extremely complicated piece of equipment in 200 BC ?

Machines with similar complexity did not appear again until the 14th century in western Europe.

 

[dronefromsector7G]

Aliens

 

[Bigg Bigg Blue]

Aliens

Giorgio Tsoukalos like this post

 

[East Level 2]

Time travellers to mess up the minds of the people who found the object.
A bit like a picture of Tottenham winning the league.

 

[DiscoSteve]

The story behind this little device is amazing - ISTR they believed that Plato (I think that's the guy) was involved in the creation of this and sadly the developing world just 'lost' the technology/mathematics behind it for over a thousand years! Youtube has all the story!

 

[Bigg Bigg Blue]

To be honest, it looks like a washing machine.

 

[mancboy]

To be honest, it looks like a washing machine.

think you need a service on your washing machine bud

 

[BimboBob]

The story behind this little device is amazing - ISTR they believed that Plato (I think that's the guy) was involved in the creation of this and sadly the developing world just 'lost' the technology/mathematics behind it for over a thousand years! Youtube has all the story!

Plato?
Everyone knows it was probably Hipparchus.

Fucking Plato. Honestly.

 

[BimboBob]

The story behind this little device is amazing - ISTR they believed that Plato (I think that's the guy) was involved in the creation of this and sadly the developing world just 'lost' the technology/mathematics behind it for over a thousand years! Youtube has all the story!

It's a bit like indoor toilets and underfloor heating. The posh Roman villas had them and then...nothing for hundreds of years.

 

[Blue Mist]

Plato?
Everyone knows it was probably Hipparchus.

Fucking Plato. Honestly.

Nah it was Plato who they say could stick it away.
Half a crate of whisky every day.

Your fellah can't have philosiphied much as the Pythons never sang about him.