The World's Oldest Computer May Have Been Used To Tell The Future

A team of international scientists revealed that they have finally figured out the secrets of the famous Antikythera Mechanism, commonly known as the world's first computer.

After a decade of investigating the 2,000 year-old-device, new light has finally shown onto this mysterious device involving the revelation that it may have been used for a few more things other than just astronomy. According to gizmodo.com, the device was discovered in an ancient shipwreck in 1901 near Crete.

It appears to be a high-tech relic that was used ages ago with a clockwork mechanism used to calculate astronomical events and other happenings in space. It has been dated to around 150 BCE the reason why it's been called the world's oldest mechanical computer.

The Antikythera Mechanism is probably one of the most interesting and significant archaeological discoveries ever. It revealed the remarkable technological and engineering capabilities of the ancient Greeks as well as how excellent they are in astronomy. The device looks like a clock with bronze gears and displays apparently used to predict lunar and solar eclipses, along with the positions of the sun, moon, and planets. It wasn't programmable, but it's considered the world's first analog computer. Dating to around 60 BC, nothing quite like it would appear for another millennium.

In an article by seeker.com, it revealed that after more than a decade of using cutting-edge scanning equipment, the research team has presented new findings relating to the famous device. Experts have been able to decipher about 3,500 characters of explanatory text, which was believed to work as a user's manual, but were previously indecipherable.

"Now we have texts that you can actually read as ancient Greek, what we had before was like something on the radio with a lot of static," explained team member Alexander Jones, a historian from New York University. "It's a lot of detail for us because it comes from a period from which we know very little about Greek astronomy and essentially nothing about the technology, except what we gather from here." Jones added, "So these very small texts are a very big thing for us."

The new analysis confirmed that the mechanism was indeed used for astronomical purpose. However, it also appears that the machine was used to see the future. Researchers came up with this conclusion because of the inscriptions on the device refer to the color of a forthcoming eclipse, Mail Online reported.

"We are not quite sure how to interpret this, to be fair, but it could hark back to suggestions that the color of an eclipse was some sort of omen or signal," said Edmunds. "Certain colors might be better for what's coming than other color. If that is so, and we are interpreting that correctly, this is the first instance we have in the mechanism of any real mention of astrology rather than astronomy."

But the researchers clarified that the primary purpose of the device was astronomical, and not astrological. If anything, it was like a textbook, or what today we'd call a tablet.