The technology used to create the Antikythera mechanism, history’s oldest computer, wouldn’t be replicated for 1,000 years.
The mystery was set aside until Derek de Solla Price, a professor of the history of science at Yale University, became intrigued by the strange device 50 years later. He used early X-Ray technology to study the Antikythera mechanism.
Price theorized that the device was way more than an ancient clock. In a 1959 paper in Scientific American, he speculated that it was actually the world’s first “computer” and that ancient Greeks had used it to unlock the mysteries of the universe.
“Nothing like this instrument is preserved elsewhere,” Price wrote. “Nothing comparable to it is known from any ancient scientific text or literary allusion.”
At the time, many dismissed Price’s “computer” theory as far-fetched. But he succeeded in laying the foundation for other scientists to build on as they investigated the Antikythera mechanism themselves.
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