Antikythera mechanism was a hundred years older than they thought.

The device, which can be called the first analog computing machine, turned out to be older than scientists had previously assumed. The records of the Babylonians of solar eclipses indicate that the Antikythera mechanism began to be used in 205 BC. Prior to this, it was believed that it was created in 100-150 BC. It's time to edit the Wikipedia article .



The inscriptions on the device helped the scientists to determine the year 205 - more than 2000 characters, as well as a comparison of data on the dial with known dates of solar eclipses in the past, which were calculated by the ancient Greeks. Previously it was thought that they predicted the position of the planets and eclipses based on trigonometry, but in 205 it was not yet. Instead, the mechanism worked on the basis of Babylonian mathematics . Scientists continue to search for the remaining parts of the Antikythera Mechanism at the shipwreck site where the device was first found.

At the moment, it is known that the mechanism consisted of 37 bronze gears in a wooden case. Survived only 30 gears. The mechanism was studied and tried to reconstruct since 1951. The computing device was able to take into account the ellipticity of the orbit of the moon, using a sinusoidal correction, for which a gear wheel with an offset center of rotation was used.
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The scheme of the mechanism.



1980 Reconstruction Mechanism.