Takes a licking but keeps on ticking

November 18, 2011 5:27 AM

It's easy to see how a watchmaker could take this device as a kind of challenge across the millennia ... and that's how we arrive at this: Hublot's own working replica of the Antikythera mechanism, scaled down from shoebox size to wristwatch size, and with a built in clock circuit so it can tell the time as well as make its astronomical predictions.
posted by veedubya (20 comments total)

I forget where I saw it exactly, but a couple of guys made one out of Legos. Amazing thing.
posted by Renoroc at 5:37 AM on November 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

That'd be here
posted by AugieAugustus at 5:46 AM on November 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

I must possess it.
posted by aramaic at 5:57 AM on November 18, 2011

Why? Because it's hella cool, that's why.

Really, what a stupid question.
posted by IndigoJones at 6:03 AM on November 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

The watch is a concept piece only...

NOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo........
posted by DU at 6:06 AM on November 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is awesome. The Antikythera mechanism is one of the most mindblowing things I have learned about in my life.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 6:06 AM on November 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

I'm still frustrated by the lack of publicly available plans. I have access to a laser cutter and a 3D printer, and a willingness to sacrifice my social life to put them to good use.

The closest I've managed to find is the paper by that MIT team who built a virtual model of it, but even that only gives e.g. approximate numbers of teeth for the gears, rather than the actual specifications from which they built their simulation.
posted by metaBugs at 6:20 AM on November 18, 2011 [5 favorites]

I agree with the Boing Boing comments, using Greek letters (incorrectly) for Roman months just spoils the thing. Particularly when you consider that the types of folks who geek out over the Antikythera are exactly the types to be irritated by that kind of inaccuracy .
posted by leotrotsky at 6:23 AM on November 18, 2011 [3 favorites]

Came here to say what IndigoJones said. Why indeed.

Why? Because MOAR.
posted by jquinby at 6:28 AM on November 18, 2011

Oh, come on. “ΓΣΒ℞VΛ℞Ψ”? Really?
posted by erniepan at 6:33 AM on November 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, come on. “ΓΣΒ℞VΛ℞Ψ”? Really?

I spent way too long trying to figure out what G'sbrivlurps could possibly be before going back to the article and finally scrolling down to the pictures of the new device. What a terrible decision.

It also makes it confusing that they seem to have put the correct Greek names for the Egyptian months on the inner ring.
posted by Copronymus at 6:48 AM on November 18, 2011 [2 favorites]

Looks like the one with Greek characters for the Latin months may be a prototype. I don't see the same mistake on picture #9.
posted by Wemmick at 6:58 AM on November 18, 2011

Why? Because "The Antikythera Mechanism" is the coolest possible name for a device, and the original lives up to its name.
posted by straight at 7:06 AM on November 18, 2011

I'm still frustrated by the lack of publicly available plans

Thing is, there's an element of speculation here and various proposals on how the thing was done.

Wikipedia gives the names of various reconstructors. Track them down and see if any of them would help you out. Worst they can do is say no.
posted by IndigoJones at 7:51 AM on November 18, 2011

I'm waiting for the Prokythera device to be discovered. (Can't have them both in the same room at the same time- big booms.)
posted by drhydro at 10:52 AM on November 18, 2011

"The watch is a concept piece only...

NOOOOOOOOOooooooooooo........"

Actually, that's probably for the best. Considering that Hublot watches retail for between $7500 to $30,000 I imagine an "Antikythera" model would force me to re-mortgage the house. And I would.
posted by TDavis at 12:30 PM on November 18, 2011

Wonderful. Yet another thing that I desperately need, yet will never be able to have.
posted by lekvar at 1:19 PM on November 18, 2011

I'm still frustrated by the lack of publicly available plans.

Never fear. They're in the same competent hands as the Dead Sea scrolls. Full details will be forthcoming shortly!
posted by Twang at 3:15 PM on November 18, 2011

Want.
posted by LordSludge at 5:42 PM on November 18, 2011

That's a neat article! It's quite something to think that Archimedes himself may have invented the technology behind the Antikythera mechanism. And that the knowledge didn't die with him but was carried on by intellectual successors who were capable of producing complex mechanisms like this one eighty years after his death.
posted by Kevin Street at 10:56 PM on November 18, 2011