Antikythera Mechanism

I’d heard that an announcement was forthcoming about the Antikythera Mechanism, but I wasn’t expecting anything till October. The plan was to read around it when I had time this summer and then appear terribly wise in the autumn. So while Badgerminor at Orbis Quintus and Glaukôpis at Glaukôpidos are talking about it, I still know very little about the mechanism that you can’tpick upfrom thenewspapers. If I get time I’ll read round the subject for autumn, but it’s one of those things which is very odd. Even being able to read it might not solve many questions about its use. Or maybe it will. The publication will have more info.

There’s also an official page from X-Tek, the people doing the scanning and an official website for the project which has an animation of the mechanism.

Beyond that there’s nothing I can say that Wikipedia doesn’t say already. No photo either because there’s nothing on a CC licence and my own photos, if I could find them, are so blurred they give me a headache. I hadn’t worked out how to focus inside glass cases when I took them.

Update: There’s now the press release and some comments on the letter in Nature on line.