Decoding the Heavens: A 2,000-Year-Old Computer and the Century-Long Search to Discover Its Secrets
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Das Ratsel um den altesten Computer der Welt. Eigentlich durfte es ihn gar nicht geben, so modern ist er: der mechanische Kalendercomputer von Antikythera, ein Apparat, mit dem die Griechen um 100 vor Christus verschiedenste Kalendarien und Zeitz yklen vorausberechnen konnten, dazu die Bewegung der Himelskorper, den Verlauf von Sonne und Mond durch den altagyptischen Tierkreis und vieles mehr. Eine analoge Rechenmaschine auf hohem Niveau, die ohne Strom und Programmabsturze auskam. Seit hundert Jahren fasziniert dieser Fund die Forscher. Seine Entdeckung, Rekonstruktion und allmahliche Entratselung sind eine schillernde Abenteuergeschichte, von Jo Marchant mitreissend erzahlt.
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Jo Marchant ist Wissenschaftsjournalistin und lebt in London. Sie studierte Naturwissenschaften und Medizin und promovierte zum Doktor der medizinischen Mikrobiologie. Drei Jahre lang war sie Redakteurin des renommierten Magazins <>, bevor sie sich selbstandig machte. Seitdem erscheinen ihre Artikel in Publikationen wie <>, <>und <>. Gegenwartig ist sie zudem Fachberaterin fur das Magazin <>.
In 1900 a group of sponge divers blown off course in the Mediterranean discovered an ancient Greek shipwreck dating from around 70 B.C. Among the objects they hauled up was what appeared to be a formless lump of corroded rock. It turned out to be the most stunning scientific artifact we have from antiquity." "For more than a century this "Antikythera mechanism" has puzzled academics. It was ancient clockwork, unmatched in complexity for one thousand years - but who could have made it, and what was it for? Now, more than 2,000 years after the device was lost at sea, scientists have pieced together its intricate workings and revealed its secrets. It is a remarkably sophisticated mechanism consisting of dials, pointers, and at least thirty interlocking gear wheels." In Decoding the Heavens, Jo Marchant tells the full story of the century-long quest to understand this ancient computer. Along the way she encounters a diverse cast of characters - ranging from Archimedes to Jacques Cousteau - and explores the deep roots of modern technology not only in ancient Greece but in the Islamic world and medieval Europe too.
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