Antikythera Mechanism, World's First Computer, Is Older Than Previously Believed

The bronze fragments of Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient analog computer, are older than scientists previously believed.

The Antikythera Mechanism was first discovered in 1901 from the Antikythera wreck. The mechanism featured a collection of bronze parts and tools that would have been used to predict the exact location of asteroids, planets and the sun, according to a new study, which was published in the Archive for History of Exact Science.

Previously, scientists believed that the mechanism was from 87 BCE, but the latest research by James Evans, professor of physics at the University of Puget Sound, and Christián Carman, history of science professor at the University of Quilmes, Argentina, indicates that the device could be from 100 BCE to 150 BCE.

The mechanism is capable of predicting solar and lunar eclipses as well, according to the scientists.

They added that the device had the dates of the Olympic Games. Scientists said that the mechanism was the most advanced device on Earth during the Medieval Era.

The research "fills a gap in ancient scientific history by indicating that the Greeks were able to predict eclipses and engineer a highly complex machine" much earlier than was previously believed, according a statement released by the University of Puget Sound.

Evans and Carman's work also goes along with the idea that the eclipse prediction scheme was not based on Greek trigonometry (which was nonexistent in 205 B.C.) Instead, it was based on Babylonian arithmetical methods, the University said.

Evans and Carman analyzed hundreds of ways that the device's eclipse patterns could match Babylonian records reconstructed by John Steele, professor of Egyptology and Assyriology at Brown University.

"The calculations take into account lunar and solar anomalies (which result in faster or slower velocity), missing solar eclipses, lunar and solar eclipse­scycles, and other astronomical phenomena," said the University of Puget Sound, in its statement. "The work was particularly difficult because only about a third of the Antikythera's eclipse predictor is preserved."

The Mechanism's encrusted fragments are kept in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.