Scientists Mystified by
2,100-Year-Old Device.
The island of Antikythera lies 18 miles north of Crete, where the
Aegean Sea meets the Mediterranean. Currents there can make shipping
treacherous -- and one ship bound for ancient Rome never made it.
The ship that sank there was a giant cargo vessel measuring nearly 500
feet long. It came to rest about 200 feet below the surface, where it
stayed for more than 2,000 years until divers looking for sponges
discovered the wreck a little more than a century ago.
Inside the hull were a number of bronze and marble statues. From the
look of things, the ship seemed to be carrying luxury items, probably
made in various Greek islands and bound for wealthy patrons in the
growing Roman Empire. The statues were retrieved, along with a lot of
other unimportant stuff, and stored.
Nine months later, an enterprising archaeologist cleared off a layer of
organic material from one of the pieces of junk and found that it
looked like a gearwheel. It had inscriptions in Greek characters and
seemed to have something to do with astronomy.
That piece of "junk" went on to become the most celebrated find from
the shipwreck; it is displayed at the National Archaeological Museum of
Athens. Research has shown that the wheel was part of a device so
sophisticated that its complexity would not be matched for a thousand
years -- it was also the world's first known analog computer.
The device is so famous that an international conference organized in
Athens a couple of weeks ago had only one subject: the Antikythera
Mechanism.
Every discovery about the device has raised new questions. Who built
the device, and for what purpose? Why did the technology behind it
disappear for the next thousand years? What does the device tell us
about ancient Greek culture? And does the marvelous construction, and
the precise knowledge of the movement of the sun and moon and Earth
that it implies, tell us how the ancients grappled with ideas about
determinism and human destiny?
"We have gear trains from the 9th century in Baghdad used for simpler
displays of the solar and lunar motions relative to one another -- they
use eight gears," said Fran?ois Charette, a historian of science in
Germany who wrote an editorial accompanying a new study of the
mechanism two weeks ago in the journal Nature. "In this case, we have
more than 30 gears. To see it on a computer animation makes it
mind-boggling. There is no doubt it was a technological masterpiece."
The device was probably built between 100 and 140 BC, and the
understanding of astronomy it displays seems to have been based on
knowledge developed by the Babylonians around 300-700 BC, said Mike
Edmunds, a professor of astrophysics at Cardiff University in Britain.
He led a research team that reconstructed what the gear mechanism would
have looked like by using advanced three-dimensional-imaging
technology. The group also decoded a number of the inscriptions.
The mechanism explores the relationship between lunar months -- the
time it takes for the moon to cycle through its phases, say, full moon
to full moon -- and calendar years. The gears had to be cut precisely
to reflect this complex relationship; 19 calendar years equal 235 lunar
months.
By turning the gear mechanism, which included what Edmunds called a
beautiful system of epicyclic gears that factored in the elliptical
orbit of the moon, a person could check what the sky would have looked
like on a date in the past, or how it would appear in the future.
The mechanism was encased in a box with doors in front and back covered
with inscriptions -- a sort of instruction manual. Inside the front
door were pointers indicating the date and the position of the sun,
moon and zodiac, while opening the back door revealed the relationship
between calendar years and lunar months, and a mechanism to predict
eclipses.
"If they needed to know when eclipses would occur, and this related to
the rising and setting of stars and related them to dates and religious
experiences, the mechanism would directly help," said Yanis Bitsakis, a
physicist at the University of Athens who co-wrote the Nature paper.
"It is a mechanical computer. You turn the handle and you have a date
on the front."
Building it would have been expensive and required the interaction of
astronomers, engineers, intellectuals and craftspeople.
Charette said the device overturned conventional ideas that the ancient
Greeks were primarily ivory tower thinkers who did not deign to muddy
their hands with technical stuff. It is a reminder, he said, that while
the study of history often focuses on written texts, they can tell us
only a fraction of what went on at a particular time.
(Imagine a future historian encountering philosophy texts written in
our time -- and an aircraft engine. The books would tell that
researcher what a few scholars were thinking today, but the engine
would give them a far better window into how technology influenced our
everyday lives.) Charette said it was unlikely that the device was used
by practitioners of astrology, then still in its infancy. More likely,
he said, it was bound for a mantelpiece in some rich Roman's home.
Given that astronomers of the time already knew how to calculate the
positions of the sun and the moon and to predict eclipses without the
device, it would have been the equivalent of a device built for a
planetarium today -- something to spur popular interest, or at least
claim bragging rights.
Why was the technology that went into the device lost?
"The time this was built, the jackboot of Rome was coming through,"
Edmunds said. "The Romans were good at town planning and sanitation but
were not known for their interest in science."
The fact that the device was so complex, and that it was being shipped
with a quantity of other luxury items, tells Edmunds that it is very
unlikely to have been the only one ever made.
Its sophistication "is such that it can't have been the only one,"
Edmunds said. "There must have been a tradition of making them. We're
always hopeful a better one will surface."
Indeed, he said, he hopes that his study and the renewed interest in
the Antikythera Mechanism will prompt second looks by both amateurs and
professionals around the world.
"The archaeological world may look in their cupboards and maybe say,
'That isn't a bit of rusty old metal in the cupboard.'"
Source: Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/10/AR2006121000628.html
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GIFTS FROM BEYOND DEPARTMENT -
Money from Heaven
Here is a bizarre phenomenon that I'm sure we all wish we could
experience: money appearing seemingly out of nowhere. Pennies, dimes,
quarters - even bills - appearing miraculously from who-knows-where.
We're not talking about finding coins on the street. We're talking
about money materializing from the sky and, more mysteriously, in and
around houses and apartments - with no easy or logical explanation.
It's Raining Money
There are many documented instances of money raining down from the
skies. During a storm in August, 1940, numerous coins fell on the
Meshchera region of Russia. In 1956, pennies and halfpennies plopped
down on children in Hanham, England as they were heading home from
school. And in 1976, two clergymen watched as 2,000 marks worth of
banknotes fluttered down from a clear sky in Limburg, West Germany.
Bryan B.
was on his lunch hour when he was showered with pennies one September
afternoon. He was walking in the office parking lot when he heard
something metallic click on the asphalt...
* Just a couple feet in front of me, I saw two shiny
new pennies, glimmering in the sun against the black pavement. As I was
about to pick them up, something fell right in front of my face, then
another, and another, which almost hit me in the arm before hitting the
ground. There were now about 6 or 7 bright, freshly minted cents around
me. I looked around to see who might be throwing their change at me,
and from where, but I seemed to be alone in the lot, and there was
nowhere above me somebody could be dropping them from; I was still too
far from the office building for that to be possible. As I stood there,
wondering what the heck was going on, I felt a sudden shooting pain on
the top of my head, and saw a penny land at my feet after it struck me.
I bent down and picked up the handful of pennies, and as I was picking
them up, two or three more fell to the ground nearby. I picked one up
and it was very warm. What was also somewhat odd was that every penny
was dated 2000.
Even luckier was Ellie to whom a fortunate wind blew higher currency.
She was gathering dry clothes from her backyard clothesline in
Australia. A small dust eddy whirled around her, carrying dry leaves
and dust - and something else...
* Whirling in the centre I saw a flash of blue. I
grabbed at it as the eddy whirled past and was very pleased to see it
was a $10 note. A bit of luck, I thought - unusual perhaps, but not
that surprising, seeing it was such a windy day. A few more days
passed. No wind now, just completely calm and still days. Once again I
was out in the yard, and under a lilac bush I saw a glimpse of red.
This was a $20 note! That wasn't the end. In the next few days, I also
found lying on the grass in various parts of the yard a $5 note
(purple) and another $20. The next day my son came in the from the yard
calling jubilantly, "Hey, mom, look what I found in the yard!" It was
yet another $20 note! But just as a final little joke, one day I pulled
out from under my bed a pair of slippers that I hadn't worn for a long
time - and there nestled in one was a 50 cent coin!
Sometimes this "money from heaven" truly seems like a godsend when it
appears in desperately needed situations. This was certainly the case
for a woman we'll call Mary who was an unwed mother of an 11-month-old
son. She barely earned enough to pay the rent, buy food and medicine,
and pay the babysitter so she could work. One day at Christmas time,
she took her baby to the grocery store with her because she couldn't
afford to pay a sitter while she shopped. She had only $20 to her
name...
* We were parked at the store, and I remember
thinking to myself, "Oh, God! How am I going to get the things I need
with only $20?" That amount would cover diapers and formula, but not
the food we needed to get by. It was a very cold, damp and windy night.
I asked God to protect my son, since there was no other way than to
take him out in the elements. As I got out of the car and put him in
the grocery cart, I noticed that no one else was anywhere in sight.
Then, three $20 bills blew up to me! Then the wind suddenly stopped. I
could hardly believe my eyes! I looked left, right and all around.
There was no one else in the parking lot! I knew somehow, somewhere God
saw and heard my plight and sent "money from heaven."
As remarkable as the previous stories are, there are even more
mysterious occurrences. Money brought on the wind is one thing, but
coins - sometimes dozens of them - inexplicably showing up around the
house are even more difficult to fathom. This seems to be a growing
phenomenon as I receive more and more stories about this happening.
Sometimes they're just pennies. Okay, it's not unusual to find some
pennies lying around the house; they are easily dropped and lost. But
what's notable about these cases is that they are found in unlikely
places. One mother tells this odd story that began when her daughter
moved into a new apartment...
* Since then she has been finding pennies in places
where they could only have been placed deliberately, such as: between
sheets in freshly made beds, in corners behind doors, in front of
doorways, drawers, bathtub and garage.
Recently, while watching TV in bed, a
penny fell from the ceiling fan (while it was on). She once was
standing in front of her dresser and one fell from somewhere.
Kim a 33-year-old professional woman likewise suddenly began finding
pennies all over her new home, but with a strange connection to extreme
stress in her life...
* The pennies were everywhere. I was going through a
bad divorce and was really down, and didn't know what to make of it. My
life got better and the kids and I adjusted to our new way of life. No
more pennies. Then recently, I started having troubles with my
16-year-old daughter. She ran away and is involved with destructive
behavior. Then the pennies started reappearing again - everywhere. I
came home from work and there was a penny on my pillow in my bedroom!
They seem to be everywhere that I go.
...and Dimes...
For some reason, dimes seem to be the coins most common in these
baffling experiences. For Ttait, the dimes began to manifest in 1995
when she struggled with completing college while raising her small
daughter. Money was tight, but she began finding dimes, which seemed to
appear out of the ether in the bathroom of her tiny one-bedroom
apartment...
* Throughout the 18 months we lived there, I would
constantly find dimes in our bathroom. Next to the tub I would find
dimes. At first I figured they fell out of my boyfriend's pants pocket.
Then I started to hear the distinct sound of coins dropping at all
hours of day or night. The sound always came from the bathroom. This
continued regularly, and I would pick up the dimes - sometimes there
would be several and always in the same place near the tub. One day I
was there alone and using the bathroom. While sitting there, I caught a
motion in the corner of my eye in the open doorway. On the rug, was a
dime next to the doorframe. It had fallen and landed soundlessly on the
rug just outside of the bathroom. I am delighted to think it was a sign
of caring from loving beings.
W.D. was in bed one morning when a dime seemingly tried to communicate
with her. It sounds strange, but she was lying in bed waiting for her
snooze alarm to off when this happened...
* All of a sudden, I felt a fast tapping in the
mattress, as if someone were using their finger to get my attention. I
then felt something touch my leg. At first I thought it was my little
Pekinese next to me, but she was not in the room. As I put my hand down
by my leg, I felt something small in size. It was a dime! I know it's a
message of some kind, but not sure as of yet what it is.
Where does this money come from? As we've seen above, at times its
appearance seems random. In other cases, however, the "money from
nowhere" seems very purposeful indeed, sometimes with a clear
connection to a deceased loved one.
Dawn B.'s 39-year-old father was killed away from home while on a
business trip. While alive, he always kept a change jar on a shelf in
the kitchen and would give out change to Dawn and her mother as needed.
Even though he was now gone, it seemed to Dawn that he was still doling
out coins...
* After his death, we started to find dimes all over
the house. We would clean the kitchen counter come back into the room
and find dimes on the counter. They would show up inside jewelry cases,
in the car, in the sink, under plants in the house.
After I had children, I would find
quarters on their high-chair trays, falling out of their walkers, on
the car seats. It has been 10 years since my father's death and we
still find dimes and quarters that seem to come from nowhere. It has
become a sense of peace for my family to know that my father is still
here with us in some way.
Michele S. tells of a tradition her "Poppa" had of giving her a dollar
every time she did something good. When she was grown and had two
children of her own, he continued the tradition, handing them dollar
bills whenever they visited. He would not let the tradition go, it
seems, even after his death...
* We were preparing to go on a trip to a livestock
show in San Antonio, and I asked my daughter to go into the attic and
retrieve a box I needed. As she went into the attic to retrieve this
box, she found a single dollar bill laying on top of it. No one had
been up there since we had put away the Christmas decorations on
January 1! She brought the dollar down to show me and I knew it was a
signal to her from Poppa that he was wishing her luck at the stock
show. She returned to the attic, and hollered down again. There was
ANOTHER single dollar bill on top of the box! I knew this one was meant
for my son from Poppa. Poppa would never have wanted him to feel left
out. And apparently, Poppa's dollars brought them very good luck. They
both brought home a blue ribbon. Thank you, Poppa.
This last story is one of my favorites. It has all the elements of this
puzzling phenomenon: the deceased relative seen as the source, a
desperate need, and circumstances that preclude any logical explanation
and point only to a true paranormal phenomenon. Helen Q. was sitting in
the living room with her adolescent son discussing money or, rather,
the lack of it...
* It was a really bad time in my life. I was crying
because I didn't have lunch money for my three sons' school lunches the
next day and I didn't know what to do about it. I had decided to just
keep them home from school. My son was 12 and hadn't missed a day all
year and he was saying, "I can't miss tomorrow! I just can't!" All I
needed was $3 and I couldn't even get that. We heard a noise in the
kitchen and we went out to check -- and there were some quarters on the
floor. I was afraid to touch them. It was the scariest thing I had ever
experienced. I wanted to run out of the house, but my two other kids
were in bed asleep. My son finally decided to pick them up. He put them
on the table. They were icy cold. There were exactly $3 in quarters!
Then my son said, "It's from Grandma. She always gave me quarters." I
felt so good at that very minute. I knew everything would be okay from
then on. We never had to go without again. Life just seemed to come
together for us after that night.
Source: Paranormal.about.com
http://paranormal.about.com/cs/othermiracles/a/aa012604.htm
