Thoughts on the Antikythera Mechanism
Created 87 BC; Lost 76 BC, at sea
off Antikythera



                        First thought:


How do you go to your boss and say,
"I've just lost
the only Computer in the world,
overboard in that ship that went down just there;
I hope you don't mind.

"And, um, there won't be another
proper Computer
for MMLXXIII years.

"Sorry..."

                         ?



        
        Boss:


"Oh, don't worry;
just put your name on that little list,
over there,
right under the fellow
who lost the
World's First Wetcell Battery
somewhere in Iran,


about M years ago.


That'll make two
of you."




                        -2-



        It is (in)conceiveable
        that, somewhere in the world
        someone has just lost a thing
        that will revolutionize the world
        in Two Thousand Years.

What kind of thing
is Mind?






                        -3-


It was not a clock; there were no clocks.
It was not a scribing device, and
it was not a toy, and
it was not an experiment.

Never mind what it was;
what are we?

What was he asking
of the Universe?

                        -4-


Blish says that Roger Bacon
may have discovered most of
the Theory of Relativity
in the Thirteenth Century.

What if they had not lost
that device?

Where would I
have been born?


                        -5-


It is not too late.
Probably.



                        -6-


Whoever made that Mechanism
covered everything up to
Einstein.


                        -7-


What in god's name
would Hawking
have been thinking about?


                        -8-


What a resilient fool
is Man.

                        -9-


Or did everything important
depend on the timing?
And has the clock
run
out?

Hurry up, please...