A Reanimated 2,000 Year Old Greek Lego Computer

By jtoney on March 26, 2011.

My son has been a Lego fanatic since he was about two years old. Our house is littered with those hard, plastic pieces on every floor, with various projects at different stages of completion - in some cases, merging into new hybrids. Legos are a great tool to encourage creativity. Who would have thought that they could be used to replicate an ancient Greek computer?

From Nature's video channel (if you have not already seen this amazing footage):

The Antikythera Mechanism is the oldest known scientific computer. Built in Greece around 100 BCE but lost for 2000 years, it was recovered from a shipwreck in 1901. However, it wasn't until a century later that its purpose was understood: it's an astronomical clock that determines the positions of celestial bodies with extraordinary precision. â¨â¨In 2010, to celebrate the launch of Digital Science, a new division of Macmillan Publishers that provides technology solutions for researchers, Nature Video and collaborators built a fully-functional replica out of Lego. â¨â¨

Antikythera Mechanism Research Project http://www.antikythera-mechanism.gr

Note: Alse see article at Aardvarchaeology and at Afarensis.

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