Archimedes Ancient Planetarium Gearwheel Unearthed?

Unraveling the Mystery of the Ancient Olbia Gearwheel

The restoration of the gearwheel found in Olbia (Sardinia, Italy) in 2006 by the Superintendence for Archaeological Heritage, dated between the mid-2nd century and the end of the 3rd century BC, has revealed a very important surprise: the teeth have a special curving which make them extraordinarily similar to the mathematically perfect profile used in modern gears. Moreover, the unusual composition of the alloy (brass) was completely unexpected. As it turns out, the gear is very scientifically advanced despite being constructed before all other known mechanisms to date. Considering the perfect correlation between the scientific evidence and historical, literary and archaeological studies, it does not seem rash to conclude that the fragment from Olbia was an integral part of the Archimedes Planetarium

This read and the fragment are very interesting.

If it wasn't from Archimedes planetarium then what could it and its advanced design been used for? Regardless of whether it is in fact from his planetarium, it is still older and more advanced than the Antikythera mechanism, which was and still is a pretty cool mind blower in itself.

With the discovery in 2006 in Olbia of the fragment of an ancient gear, scientifically and technically more advanced than the gear of Antikythera, and after deep, careful and thorough studies considered part of a planetarium designed by Archimedes, it has shed a new and unexpected light on the magnitude of scientific thought of the genius of Syracuse. The scientific and mathematical studies of the find have shown that many inventions that we consider modern had in fact already been developed and designed by Archimedes over two thousand years before

These are just two examples of fairly advanced designs supposedly way before their time, OR are we in our "Modern" world simply rediscovering lost knowledge?

In any case, here we now have two examples of just how sophisticated our ancestors were, found by blind luck in both occasions. I have no doubt there are more yet to discovered buried ancient artifacts that will twist our noodle even further.

a reply to: SLAYER69

Reminds me of the Antikythera Mechanism, but like you say, this is more advanced!?!?!

www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

how people can say that man could create such wonderful inventions 1000's of years ago that are more accurate then things built today.

Interesting

Peace!

a reply to: Phatdamage

Do you not believe man created these artefacts then? And what are you referring to that is more accurate than things built today?

It seems man is doomed to reinvent the wheel [or gear] over and over. Modern conceit that WE are the pinnacle of achievement keeps getting knocked down a few pegs with discoveries like this. If ancient man could build things like these, imagine what could have been if these types of things [meaning the gears] saw more widespread use. It's really a shame that we barely have any idea of what our forebears actually accomplished.

a reply to: Learningman

The device, they say, is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterwards.

Although the device was analog (mechanical) it could calculate with the accuracy of a slide rule. It plotted angular velocities, the synodic and sideral lunar cycles, and presented the position of the known planets and moon for any date entered. Aside from being an engineering mystery, the device showed that the designers understood that the sun was the center of the local system - not the Earth!

Considering these objects where made in candlelight rooms only a few years from man living in mud huts......... come on! even you must be amazed...

But you do pose an interesting question.... Did man create this??

good question, personally i believe that man copied the design from another source, what that source is.... the mind boggled my friend..

a reply to: Phatdamage

Not to nitpick but that is from bibliotecaplayedes, it is not scientific and has much based on opinion.
Nevertheless, nowhere does even that source state that it is more accurate than anything built today.
Also we were more advanced than 'a few years from man living in mud huts'.
Mankind has had mortar from 7000 B.C., whereas the Antikythera mechanism dates from about only 200 B.C.

I am amazed though, but amazed at human ingenuity

originally posted by: Phatdamage
good question, personally i believe that man copied the design from another source, what that source is.... the mind boggled my friend..

Jumping straight to fantasy, huh? Interesting position to take....

Fantastic find, Slayer!

originally posted by: AdmireTheDistance

originally posted by: Phatdamage
good question, personally i believe that man copied the design from another source, what that source is.... the mind boggled my friend..

Jumping straight to fantasy, huh? Interesting position to take....

Fantastic find, Slayer!

Cause you know, little aliens would immediately build gear driven astronomical calculators.

a reply to: AdmireTheDistance

I must admit, it has always made me wonder how they could make accurate maps, mechanical devices, planet tracking systems, when most people at that age, had no idea what was in space?

how gravity worked, and how to this day it would have been accurate,

surely a small part of you would also say did they have help?

all this apart, it is amazing what man can create, maybe we have lost an art, and rely on modern day tech to much.

a reply to: Bedlam

Makes sense,

(hear me out)

if you came across a tribe that asked you to help tell time, would you give them a digital watch, Phone? no you would teach them how to build a sun dial? or another basic system that wouldn't rely on batteries or tech they wouldn't be able to support

Ii know its a bit far fetched!, but you get what i'm trying to say

originally posted by: Phatdamage
a reply to: AdmireTheDistance

I must admit, it has always made me wonder how they could make accurate maps, mechanical devices, planet tracking systems, when most people at that age, had no idea what was in space?

Yeah, they'd only been tracking the movements of the stars and planets for over 2000 years at that point, what did they know eh

originally posted by: Phatdamage
if you came across a tribe that asked you to help tell time, would you give them a digital watch, Phone? no you would teach them how to build a sun dial? or another basic system that wouldn't rely on batteries or tech they wouldn't be able to support

Ii know its a bit far fetched!, but you get what i'm trying to say

So you're hypothesising that no one could tell the time without alien intervention as well
You would give them a digital watch, it'd be easier....

originally posted by: Phatdamage
a reply to: Bedlam

Makes sense,

(hear me out)

if you came across a tribe that asked you to help tell time, would you give them a digital watch, Phone? no you would teach them how to build a sun dial? or another basic system that wouldn't rely on batteries or tech they wouldn't be able to support

I bet that any "tribe" would be the ones showing you how to tell the time if you encountered them, if there is no technology and therefore no civilisation nearby, what use would your watch be, or what need would you have of it, or they of your sun dial?

It would make sense that the knowledge and devices were not widespread, reserved for great public works the military and entertaining Kingly courts. There are examples in China where inventions were closely guarded secrets kept from enemies. Even in WWII, bomber sights were considered top secret high tech and procedures were in place to destroy them so they couldn't fall into enemy hands. Probably the same motives applied back then also. A gear could be used to set a battering ram for example.

a reply to: TinfoilTP

Yes that's what I was thinking. And the necessary secrecy made it easier for knowledge to be lost. If the wrong person or persons died, or were captured, or were unable to return home, or a natural disaster or any other combination of circumstances were to occur, the secret could be lost, or a key part of it could be lost.

Man could have had a "golden age" with much abundance and very little major conflict, in which he/she was able to devote their time to mastering technological wonders. When that period ended, and secrecy rather than the propagation of knowledge was the rule of the day,little by little, these secrets were lost. So when something broke, there was no way to fix it properly or build another one. They would have versions that were not quite as good, and so on as man descended into more divided groups and more warlike ways of living.

This is why we see things like the great pyramid built with incredible precision, and all those that came after were incrementally less and less impressive. We could see the effects of our choices right before our very eyes, and yet we were somehow unable to get along with one another, thus doomed to secrecy at our own detriment.

Perhaps some groups who could see what was happening, dedicated their lives to preserving knowledge, saving it for their own benefit after watching humanity tear itself apart, and this is where the the ancient fraternal brotherhoodsand secret societies come from. And why they deem the rest of us as cattle, too dumb to deserve the knowledge they so painstakingly preserved, waiting for the right time and right political environment to release some of it, little by little... However inevitably some of them becoming corrupt themselves and with a calloused view of humanity in general, becoming, in a way, a form of what they originally fought so hard against. Splitting into different factions going by different names with different beliefs on how to manage the powerful advantage their knowledge gave them.

Some would retain their power to their lineages forever, not willing to trust the masses ever again after witnessing thousands of years of bloodshed and waste, having a heavy disdain for humanity in general, while others dreamed of restoring humanity to its golden age, in full, as was their original purpose, when the time is right... They battle behind the scenes to this day... Irreconcilable in their differences, yet bound by the same secrets and somehow unable, or unwilling, to destroy one another for good.

a reply to: SLAYER69 Slayer, nice post.
The most intersting part of this story is that, this gear sector appears to be more advanced than the later antykathera mechanisms gear sets.
It seems to be a true involute gear profile.
But let me say, as advanced as the mathematical basis for involute gears is, the profile can be generated by a strictly graphical method.
All that is required is a compass, straight edge and a string. The ancient Greek mathematical system was not able to generate the mathematical definition of the profile of the curve of the gear face.
Battery is dying see ya'll

originally posted by: 3n19m470

Man could have had a "golden age" with much abundance and very little major conflict, in which he/she was able to devote their time to mastering technological wonders.

Oh please, do some research, the Golden age concept is a metaphor derived from Greek mythology, which split time into five periods
Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and then the present (Iron),

There was never a real golden age, where mankind lived in peace and harmony with the cosmos, we are tribal, we have always been tribal and tribalism does not allow things like metaphorical golden ages to exist.

The reason that these advancements were lost, is because there was very little communication between cultures. So when the inventor died, all his ideas died with him..
There was no internet, no telecoms, no patent office, no mass production, if you invented a machine to do anything and sold it to someone else, then when it malfunctioned, that was the end of it. There were no repairmen to call on, no place to send it to be fixed. The whole world was dumb until the invention of writing came along and even then it took thousands of years until anyone but the priesthood used it. Merchants were still pressing their personal seals onto clay tablets attached to their shipments because they couldn't write well into the modern period...

What you have there is part of the advertising material for a book by Giovanni Pastore The promotional material is the ONLY representation of this gear (and I did wonder why) that I could find. Pastore, who is an engineer ( www.ancient-origins.net... ) has written about mechanical devices. But what puzzles me is the lack of information I see about the gear.

Pastore appears to be the main person discussing this as a gear and identifying it as part of an Archimedes planetarium, and the other sources I see point back to him.

Do you have anything other than the book advertisement? I'd love to see what the context was.

a reply to: Marduk

there was very little communication between cultures.

Huh. Very little communication, you say? From the perspective of some of those cultures, that might almost seem like some kind of a "golden age" where there was much abundance and very little major conflict, in which he/she was able to devote their time to mastering technological wonders.

Warfare is a form of communication. I'm aware of the Greek concept of the golden, silver, etc., ages. I wasn't specifically referring to that "golden" age. There are several other cultures with their own concept of a golden age, and the following sequence of less appealing ages... I wonder why so many cultures have that? Maybe there is some truth to it, if, as you say, there was very little communication and therefore, very little warfare.

In Egypt and South America, and I imagine other places,we have the example of the oldest structures built with uncanny precision, and progression into the future led to less impressive building techniques. Perhaps, as communication between cultures became more frequent, so did conflict between them as the world became ever smaller and smaller. More time, energy and resources were allocated for defense, and less toward craftsmanship.

It could be there were scattered groups whom wistfully longed for a return to the time when knowledge was a higher priority. Maybe these hypothetical groups formed secret societies in order to preserve the remnants of knowledge they had left, and, by studying it in private, tried to recover the missing pieces to the puzzle.

Over time, a they became more organized, they were able to put this relearnt knowledge to very good use for themselves, as they still do to this day, perhaps...

a reply to: Byrd

Awww maaaan. Oh well. If nothing more comes up to verify the authenticity/veracity of this find, at least we still have Antikythera to wonder about! Along with other ancient wonders.

Still hoping this is real though!

a reply to: 3n19m470

Even if it is not part of the device it is claimed, if it is as ancient as claimed, it is still an extraordinary artefact. So much I am blown away.