By: Claire Zhou

An ancient computer-calculator-like mechanism, named the Antikythera mechanism, was found in a shipwreck near a Greek Island in 1901. During the course of over a hundred years, researcher after researcher tried to discover the purpose and mysteries of this device. It’s an ingenious calculator made 2,200 years ago and said to be the world’s first analog computer. However the final truth has still yet to be found.

The Horological Journal published research that challenged previous theories about this device. But instead of going down the path of archaeology research, scientists turned to the methods of gravitational wave astronomy, ripples in space-time that come from cosmic disruptions.

A professor of astrophysics at the University of Glasgow, Graham Woan, and Joseph Bayley, a research associate there, discovered that the gadget has a calendar ring, a circular feature that only barely survived in fragments, which once used to have 354 holes, and correlates to a lunar calendar, which has 354 days.

However if the calendar ring does in fact correspond to a lunar year, it would contradict other theories. There was already a calendar, what was the need of another one? So for this very reason, many scholars still had doubts about this new analysis.

This device left many mysteries because it was so ahead of its time period, dating back to the second century B.C. It had gears, dials, and tracked cycles of the moon, sun, planets, constellations, and even predicting eclipses and marking the time of athletic games, like the ancient olympics.

Year after year, researchers are just finding more information about this extraordinary mechanism, leaving scientists looking forward to future new discoveries and hopefully one day, finally uncovering it all.

Image Credit by Pixabay