the ten most puzzling ancient artifacts

[Brianna]

http://www.ancientx.com/nm/anmviewer.asp?a=75&z=1

interesting article.

[tjakey]

A quick internet search (slow day at work) pretty quickly shows that science is safe and that the history of the world will not be overthrown in favor of either UFOs or YECs.

Fun read, though taking it at face value would be a mistake.

[Notta]

The Antikythera Mechanism is my favorite. I think I saw a TV special on it that described it as an advanced clockwork mechanism. It's way cool, though!

[Berthold]

The Antikythera Mechanism is my favorite. I think I saw a TV special on it that described it as an advanced clockwork mechanism. It's way cool, though!
It's an orrery. Some will immediately say, "No, it's an analog computer!". The definition of "analog computer", however, is potentially so encompassing that it easily includes orreries.

[Notta]

That's interesting! I think the show I saw said it was both an orrery and a timepiece, which I remembered as 'clock'.

[Berthold]

You can use a (mechanically exact) orrery to tell the planetary positions at any time; that's the connection of it with time.

It's modelled, of course, according to the Ptolemaic system. Copernicus was still in the future. :)