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Author Jones, Alexander, author.

Title A portable cosmos : revealing the Antikythera Mechanism, scientific wonder of the ancient world / Alexander Jones.

Publication Info. New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2017]

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Manchester, Main Library - Non Fiction  681.1 JONES    Check Shelf
Description xiv, 288 pages ; 25 cm
Summary "The Antikythera Mechanism, now 82 small fragments of corroded bronze, was an ancient Greek machine simulating the cosmos as the Greeks understood it. Reflecting the most recent researches, A Portable Cosmos presents it as a gateway to Greek astronomy and technology and their place in Greco-Roman society and thought"-- Provided by publisher.
"From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Terracotta Army, ancient artifacts have long fascinated the modern world. However, the importance of some discoveries is not always immediately understood. This was the case in 1901 when sponge divers retrieved a lump of corroded bronze from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea near the Greek island of Antikythera. Little did the divers know they had found the oldest known analog computer in the world, an astonishing device that once simulated the motions of the stars and planets as they were understood by ancient Greek astronomers. Its remains now consist of 82 fragments, many of them containing gears and plates engraved with Greek words, that scientists and scholars have pieced back together through painstaking inspection and deduction, aided by radiographic tools and surface imaging. More than a century after its discovery, many of the secrets locked in this mysterious device can now be revealed. In addition to chronicling the unlikely discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism, author Alexander Jones takes readers through a discussion of how the device worked, how and for what purpose it was created, and why it was on a ship that wrecked off the Greek coast around 60 BC. What the Mechanism has uncovered about Greco-Roman astronomy and scientific technology, and their place in Greek society, is truly amazing. The mechanical know-how that it embodied was more advanced than anything the Greeks were previously thought capable of, but the most recent research has revealed that its displays were designed so that an educated layman could understand the behavior of astronomical phenomena, and how intertwined they were with one's natural and social environment. It was at once a masterpiece of machinery as well as one of the first portable teaching devices. Written by a world-renowned expert on the Mechanism, A Portable Cosmos will fascinate all readers interested in ancient history, archaeology, and the history of science"-- Provided by publisher.
Contents Chapter 1. The Wreck and the Discovery -- Chapter 2. The Investigations -- Chapter 3. Looking at the Mechanism -- Chapter 4. Calendars and Games -- Chapter 5. Stars, Sun, and Moon -- Chapter 6. Eclipses -- Chapter 7. The Wanderers -- Chapter 8. Hidden Workings -- Chapter 9. Afterword: The Meaning of the Mechanism.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [269]-280) and index.
Subject Antikythera mechanism (Ancient calculator)
Astronomy, Ancient -- Greece.
Calendar, Greek.
Science -- Greece -- History -- To 1500.
Technology -- Greece -- History -- To 1500.
Greece -- Intellectual life -- To 146 B.C.
Greece -- Antiquities.
Antikythēra Island (Greece) -- Antiquities.
HISTORY / Ancient / Greece.
Antikythera mechanism (Ancient calculator) (OCoLC)fst01747943
Antiquities. (OCoLC)fst00810745
Astronomy, Ancient. (OCoLC)fst00819761
Calendar, Greek. (OCoLC)fst00844192
Intellectual life. (OCoLC)fst00975769
Science. (OCoLC)fst01108176
Technology. (OCoLC)fst01145078
Greece. (OCoLC)fst01208380
Greece -- Antikythēra Island. (OCoLC)fst01303252
Chronological Term To 1500
Genre/Form History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
ISBN 9780199739349 (hardcover)
019973934X (hardcover)
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