MADRID, June 28 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The same cutting-edge techniques used in detecting gravitational waves in the cosmos have helped shed new light on the workings of oldest known analog computer.
Astronomers from the University of Glasgow have used statistical modeling techniques developed to analyze gravitational waves to establish the probable number of holes in one of the broken rings of the Antikythera mechanism.
The results provide new evidence that one of the components of the Antikythera mechanism is likely was used to track the Greek lunar year. They also offer a new perspective on the remarkable technological craftsmanship achieved by the ancient Greeks.
The mechanism was discovered in 1901 by divers exploring a sunken shipwreck near the Aegean island of Antikythera. Although the shoebox-sized mechanism had broken into fragments and eroded away, it soon became apparent that contained a complex series of gears with unusually intricate tools.
Decades of subsequent research and analysis have established that the mechanism dates back to the 2nd century BC. C. and functioned as a kind of manually operated mechanical computer. The outer dials connected to the inner gears allowed users to predict eclipses and calculate the astronomical positions of the planets on a given date with an accuracy unmatched by any other known contemporary device.
In 2020, new X-ray images of one of the mechanism’s rings, known as the calendar ring, revealed new details of regularly spaced holes found beneath the ring. However, as the ring was broken and incomplete, it was unclear how many holes it originally had. The initial analysis by Antikythera researcher Chris Budiselic and his colleagues He suggested that it was probably some year between 347 and 367.
Now, in a new paper published in the Horological Journal, researchers from Glasgow describe how they used two statistical analysis techniques to reveal new details about the calendar ring. They show that it is far more likely that the ring had 354 holes, corresponding to the lunar calendar, than 365 holes, which would have followed the Egyptian calendar. The analysis also shows that 354 holes is hundreds of times more likely than a 360-hole ringwhich previous research had suggested as a possible count.
Professor Woan used a technique called Bayesian analysis, which uses probability to quantify uncertainty based on incomplete data, to calculate the likely number of holes in the mechanism using the positions of the surviving holes and the placement of the six surviving ring fragments. . His results showed strong evidence that the mechanism’s calendar ring contained 354 or 355 holes.
At the same time, one of Professor Woan’s colleagues at the University’s Gravitational Research Institute, Dr Joseph Bayley, adapted the techniques used by his research group to analyze the signals captured by the LIGO gravitational wave detectors, which They measure small ripples in space-time, caused by massive astronomical events such as colliding black holes, as they pass by Earth, to examine the calendar ring.
The methods Woan and Bayley used provided a complete probabilistic set of results, which again suggested that the ring It probably contained 354 or 355 holes in a circle of radius 77.1 mm, with an uncertainty of about 1/3 mm. It also reveals that the holes were placed with extraordinary precision, with an average radial variation of just 0.028 mm between each hole.
Bayley, a co-author of the paper, is a research associate in the School of Physics and Astronomy. He said it’s a statement: “Previous studies had suggested that the calendar ring was likely to have followed the lunar calendar, but the dual techniques we have applied in this work greatly increase the probability that this was the case.
Professor Woan added: “It is a clear symmetry that we have adapted the techniques we use to study the universe today to understand more about a mechanism that helped people track the heavens almost two millennia ago.”
