- Antikythera Mechanism
One of the most remarkable inventions of the ancient world came to light in 1900 when a Greek sponge diver discovered the wreck of an ancient Greek or Roman cargo ship that had sunk off the Greek island of Antikythera around 80 B.C.E. Among the objects recovered from the wreck was a geared mechanism that, from the shape of its inscribed Greek letters, dated to between 150 and 100 B.C.E.
The mechanism has more than thirty gear wheels and three main dials. When reassembled, it formed a scientific instrument that could be used to calculate
the astronomical positions of the sun, moon, and the five planets then known. When a date was entered via a crank, now lost, the mechanism calculated the position of the sun, moon, or planet. The Antikythera mechanism, as it is known, is the first known geared device and thus the first known clockwork mechanism,and the oldest known scientific instrument.
The concept of differential gearing was not rediscovered until the sixteenth century, while the complexity and miniaturization of its parts are comparable to the finest eighteenth-century clocks.
Crucially, while the mechanism is based on theories of astronomy and mathematics developed by Greek scientists of the day, it has a heliocentric rather than the then current geocentric view of the solar system and presumes a theory of planetary motion and a knowledge of the laws of the gravity that were not known at the time. Recent research has revealed it also organized the calendar in the four-year cycle of ancient Greek games. Whoever built this mechanism would have been astonishingly ahead of his time.
SEE ALSO: WATER CLOCK, SHADOW CLOCK, TOWER CLOCK, PENDULUM CLOCK, ATOMIC CLOCK, DIGITAL CLOCK
- Aqueduct
Water conduits invented by the Minoans.
An aqueduct is any artificial conduit for the delivery of water, though the term is often misunderstood to refer only to the arches sometimes Used to enable these channels to span low ground.
Ancient civilizations on the Tigris, Euphrates, and Nile diverted water from these great rivers for irrigation, but the paucity of supply in Minoan Crete encouraged the development of complex storage and distribution systems for the first time in the second millennium B.C.E.
It is thee Romans who are best known for their innovative water supply systems. Between 312 B.C.E. and 226 C.E. the Romans constructed eleven major
aqueducts to provide Rome with water.
Aqueducts did not become commonplace again until the last nineteenth century, when rising populations in the United Kingdom outgrew local water sources, and engineers developed systems of
aqueducts to provide a clean and reliable supply.
The United States followed suit in the twentieth Century with the construction of vast aqueducts to supply its cities, and these, including the 444 mile- long (715 kilometer) California Aqueduct, remain among the largest and longest in the world.
SEE ALSO: CANAL, ARCHED BRIDGE,DAM, TUNNEL,SEWAGE SYSTEM