A simple stick set vertically in the ground becomes a ‘gnomon’, the shadow casting element of a sundial, from which much about the daily and yearly motion of the sun can be learned (‘gnosi’ is the Greek root ‘knowledge’). The mechanism encodes a program mapping an input to an output this program can run at any speed.Įarly timekeepers relied on naturally occurring oscillations such as the daily motion of the sun across the sky to track time. It doesn’t matter if the crank is turned fast or slow, the purpose of the machine is to maintain a precise set of ratios between the motion of the crank and changes in position of various indicators on the front and back of the device.
It has no automatic drive moving it forward at a set rate, but rather, an operator provides an input through a crank. The Antikythera Mechanism is not a timekeeper per se. How many other mechanisms like the Antikythera were invented and lost and invented again? Reflecting on the nature of time connects us to a vast human enterprise that stretches from the first glimmers of reason to our highest achievements. Mathematics developed to describe and generalize these patterns, allowing early humans to make vital predictions tools were invented that reflected the mathematics in mechanisms to assist those prehistoric scientists skills to make and use those tools were passed from generation to generation. This curiosity spans cultures, and was present when our earliest ancestors learned to find patterns in the seasons, the migrations of animals, the tides, the apparent motions of stars and planets and the moon across the sky. Yet at the time it was made, it already represented the heritage of thousands of years of human curiosity about the passage of time. The Antikythera Mechanism is an almost unbelievable anachronism, like finding an airplane in an ancient tomb. Antikythera Fragment A Ī modern reconstruction of the mechanism is being documented by ClickSpring Whatever fabrication techniques and mathematics the device embodied were lost to the ages – no known object approaching its intricacy would appear in the world for another 1000 years. Hands tracked the position of the sun, moon and planets, as well as the moon’s phase, and a special section was dedicated to the schedule of the Olympic Games. The images revealed complex clockwork, a kind of mechanical analog computer for tracking the passage of time. It had been on the ocean floor for nearly two thousand years, and it would remain largely unexamined until 70 years later, when advances in X-ray and gamma imaging would expose previously unimagined internal detail to the device now known as the Antikythera Mechanism. In 1901 an unremarkable hunk of corroded metal and rotted wood was recovered from a sunken shipwreck off the island of Antikythera, Greece. Aidan Fowler and Young Min’s Blur ClockĪ sample of the excellent work by previous students.James Hoskin Generalisable Astrolabe for a Procedural Universe.
Students will execute several production assignments throughout the semester.
#SUNDIAL DIGITAL CLOCK 3D PLANS SOFTWARE#
Practically, we’ll build mechanical and software clocks experiment with time-series data and time protocols and survey techniques for digital signal processing and software state transitions. Topics will range from historical clock and orrery design through modern computer architecture (“A computer is a clock with benefits” writes Paul Ford in Bloomberg’s issue dedicated to code). In this course we’ll reflect on the deep mysteries of time while also gaining hands-on skills applicable to temporal media and technologies. We’re at a unique moment, one in which we’ve developed the ability to perceive relativistic effects on time at the smallest scales, while struggling to think and plan across generations. From the 2000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism to modern cesium-fountain clocks, humans have long sought to understand temporal patterns in nature, and build mechanisms to measure, reflect and predict those patterns. Time is at once fundamental and mysterious.
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