The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient instrument generally considered the world's first analog computer.
Found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece, the long-decayed device is thought to have once predicted planetary positions and eclipses.
Photo courtesy of Marsyas via Wikipedia
Now, new research conducted on a piece of the device, called the Saros dial, dates this mechanism back to 205 BC, about 50-100 years older than previous analyses suggested, as reported by Engadget. These new findings also theorize that Babylonian-style arithmetic, rather than trigonometry, formed the basis for the ancient machine's calculations.
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