Events
The Antikythera Mechanism and the history of science
March 29, 2024
Friday, April 5
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Mary Idema Pew Library
Multipurpose Room
Reception to follow
Did you love “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”? Did you wonder if the Dial was real or just a fantasy? Wonder no longer!
Learn the truth about the real ancient object that inspired the so-called "Dial of Destiny": the Antikythera Mechanism! The Antikythera Mechanism is an ancient Greek analog computer dating back to the 1st or 2nd century BCE. Discovered in 1901 by Greek sponge divers off the coast of the Greek island of Antikythera, it is one of the most intriguing artifacts ever found from antiquity.
Guest speaker Dr. Alexander Jones (New York University) is one the nation's leading researchers on the Mechanism, which is widely held to be the world's first computational device for tracking the movements of heavenly bodies. This astronomical calculator revolutionized our understanding of astronomy and celestial mechanics, offering a window into the cosmos as perceived by the ancient Greeks.
Dr. Jones will explain how we can integrate an object once regarded as an "outlier" into the history of ancient science (and technology), along with more general discussion of how historians handle the interplay of material culture and textual evidence to illuminate periods of science for which the evidence is fragmentary.