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Antikythera Mechanism

Mechanical Engineering

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The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient Greek geared device built in the second century BC and recovered from a shipwreck near the island of Antikythera in 1901. It used a system of bronze gears to predict astronomical positions and eclipses years in advance and to track the cycle of the ancient Olympic and other Panhellenic games. It is the oldest known example of an analogue computer, and no geared machine of comparable complexity is known to have been built again until European astronomical clocks appeared roughly fourteen centuries later.

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