In 1900, Greek sponge divers discover a 2000 year old shipwreck off the island of Antikythera. Amongst the recover items, a small rusty chunk of metal, having the size of a laptop: the Antikythera Mechanism. Being so complex it took 100 years to understand it.
It turns out that, two millennia back, technology in Greece had advanced to enormous levels, comparable to the onset of the industrial revolution! This discovery changed fundamentally the history of science and technology.
The Antikythera Mechanism is an astronomical calculator of ingenious design and unprecedented accuracy. It makes predictions about celestial bodies and eclipses, Olympic games and other events. It doesn’t necessarily work in current time, but also in the past and mainly future, unlike a clock. Practically, one turns a side handle, which sets gears into motion.
