Comments on: Book Review — Marchant, Decoding the Heavens

By: James McCormick

James McCormick — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:04:17 +0000

Lex: re: dispersion of Antikythera mechanisms. Marchant’s book suggests that there were likely hundreds of such devices (in various levels of sophistication) because the mechanism was so clearly evolved from simpler versions. Now the race is on between academics to identify whether the elite demand for such items was driven by a new interest in astrology or a new interest in rationalism. There are tantalizing snippets from Roman literature that the Romans took items from Syracuse/Archimedes (a colony of Corinth) which were still shown off in elite collections in Rome, 4 centuries later. Islamic automated sundials/astrolabes from eight-nine centuries later appear to be descendants of Byzantine iterations.

Like ancient Roman/Greek bronze statuary (of which there were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands made), the bronze Antikythera device may have only survived when submerged in the ocean. Vast quantities of metal were re-melted in antiquity and late antiquity/early medieval periods because of their value. If
the role of the Antikythera device became obscure, a household might sell it as scrap in later generations. Clearly the Romans admired Greek ingenuity but turned their attention more to monumental and civil engineering. It’s worth nothing that the equipment they used for such huge projects is also largely gone!

And examples like Vindolanda [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vindolanda_tablets]
show how much mundane and elite literature must have been lost … which might have explained why the Romans did not maintain (in public record at least) the geared technology (and analog computation) of the Antikythera device. The Romans had a love/hate relationship with Greeks and Greek culture that continued to the very end.

Passing Reader:

By great good fortune, I’ve reviewed two books on CB which go directly to your question. The first shows how the social milieu in north-west Europe supported dynamic co-operation between artisans and theoreticians.

http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/4563.html Mokyr Gifts of Athena

The second tells a wonderful historical tale of the counterintuitive way in which Newton’s Principia received strong British and European elite support … and then how very ordinary blue-collar folk ran with the implications of his work.

http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/4235.html Jacob & Stewart Practical Matter

Best to all, J.

By: A passing reader

A passing reader — Sat, 02 May 2009 06:39:41 +0000

Lexington Green says:

>>Technology without a legal and institutional framework and a high radius of trust in commercial dealings ends up as small islands of cleverness or genius, but the ripples cannot spread far.

Could Lex or anyone else recommend to this reader (who is a non-specialist in everything discussed here) a book or two, or an essay or two, on the importance of trust in contexts like this one? I have come to increasingly appreciate its role in organizations (by observing what happens when trust collapses), and would like to dip into the literature on the subject.

Many thanks. (And yes, the Antikythera mechanism is unbelievably cool.)

By: Jay Manifold

Jay Manifold — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:07:40 +0000

Sol - "We live in a modern age of global commication and it is easy to forget how a separation of a 100 miles can be an insurmountable barrier to sharing seemingly useless thoughts." Looks like that barrier's gone, heh. James, or anybody else who wants to chime in: I am tremendously intrigued by the suggestion that "[a] fascinating syllabus or educational module" be created from Decoding the Heavens. I frequently give presentations on current astronomical topics at Powell Observatory. Based on your impression of the book, could its essence be distilled to a PowerPoint deck of 50 slides or less and imparted to a general audience? If this seems even remotely possible, I'm going to buy it and see what I can do.

By: sol vason

sol vason — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:02:59 +0000

Equally important to protection of intellectual property is the ability to tell some one who can understand what you have discovered. Beginning in medieval times, the establishment of universities and postal systems enabled scholars to share ideas and help each other discover new things. The fact that they had Latin as a common language made sharing ideas possible. The printing press broadcast new ideas (ometimes in Latin, sometimes in vulgar languages) and this stimulated science.

We live in a modern age of global commication and it is easy to forget how a separation of a 100 miles can be an insurmountable barrier to sharing seemingly useless thoughts.

By: Jim Bennett

Jim Bennett — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:52:22 +0000

And Macfarlane and Martin make the point that many of the classical foundational experiments of early science required the availability of glass for lenses, prisms, and containers.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/305/5689/1407?ijkey=GkO9Lbqzeld/

By: Jim Bennett

Jim Bennett — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:50:00 +0000

Coincidentally. the Volokhs had this interesting discussion of patents and tchnological progress:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_04_26-2009_05_02.shtml#1240974253

By: Mike Cunningham

Mike Cunningham — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:27:33 +0000

It is in fact the earliest known example of The McGuffin!

By: sol vason

sol vason — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:18:23 +0000

Shepherd's Historical Atlas is a good source for the location of ancient place names, kingdoms, queendoms, dukedoms, et al. I use the 1964 edition. Amazon has the 1980 editon. Link

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:46:24 +0000

Technological secrecy was the bane of the classical world. With no means of protecting intellectual property, people kept anything they discovered close to their vest. Anyone who publicized an innovation lost it for ever.

One striking thing one notices about the experiments done at the dawn of the scientific era was how trivial they were. Galileo’s experiments on motion required no technology more sophisticated a wood ramp and ball.

The classical world could not exploit its technological innovations because they didn’t have the attitude or belief that knowledge could be created. They had no conception that experiments proved anything.

By: Jim Bennett

Jim Bennett — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 16:08:49 +0000

Yes — the Roman world had much of the technology that was regained by Renaissance times, but the didn’t seem to have the political or financial mechanisms in place that drove the expansion of Europeans into the wider world. If they could make an astronomical calculator like this they probably could have made a mechanical desktop adding machine such as were common in offices before the advent of the electronic computer. But their financial mechanisms were so primitive that they wouldn’t have gotten much benefit from them.

By: Lexington Green

Lexington Green — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:08:43 +0000

James, is there any sense of how widespread this technology was? I recall reading years ago L. Sprague DeCamp’s book The Ancient Engineers — his assessment was that the ancient Mediterranean world failed to have a technological breakthrough because it did not have — wait for it! — patent law. Interesting. To this day, in Italy, where businesses are often very sophisticated, medium-sized, and experts at pricey, custom goods they rely on trade secrets and do not trust anything to the legal system. So, was this machine the possession of some small community of people who kept it a secret among themselves? If so, the fall of ancient civilization may not have been from a “peak” represented by this machine, where this machine and its owners and users were a tiny minority who could not and would not have expanded the technology to widespread use.

Technology without a legal and institutional framework and a high radius of trust in commercial dealings ends up as small islands of cleverness or genius, but the ripples cannot spread far. Early modern Europe, especially England, had the framework in place. The ancients, the Chinese, the Muslims … all had moments of brilliance but could not get self-sustaining science and technology going.

Of course, it may be the case that there was a lot more of this stuff, but it has all been lost … .

By: Mrs. Davis

Mrs. Davis — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:35:47 +0000

Excellent review. Thank you.