Antikythera Mechanism

iOS Universel / Education

This is a full working simulation of the world's first computer: the Antikythera Mechanism, an ancient Greek device accidentally discovered a century ago on an extraordinary shipwreck.

Bringing the mechanism back to life, this special app allows the user to investigate in great detail how the ancients viewed the cosmos.

The crank input can be controlled by the point slider at the bottom, enabling clockwise and anti-clockwise motion at varying speeds. Use the swipe rotate and pinch zoom features to navigate in and around the mechanism. Another point slide is also available at the side for panning vertically. The Calendar dial can be rotated using the + - controls on the bottom left of the screen.

Two viewing modes are available for selection at the top; the external mode offers a detailed look at all the dials and the internal mode offers a close inspection of the gear arrangements which drive all eight outputs.

WARNING: Due to the high graphics requirements to run this app, please consider that this app only runs smoothly on the latest three generations of iPhone and only the latest two generations of iPad.

Quoi de neuf dans la dernière version ?

1) The app now incorporates within the mechanism the planet indicators of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn along with the Sun and Moon indicators. The conjectural used gearing is based on the paper: 'The Cosmos in the Antikythera Mechanism' written by Tony Freeth and Alexander Jones, 2012.
2) Colour rendering has been addressed and the viewing of the inscriptions is improved.
4) Top left button allows the user to select a date between 01/01/1900 and 01/01/2051 where the planetary alignments will be shown for that specific date.
5) Please note that app may not work on iPhones older than 3 generations and iPads older than 2 generations.