Interesting Thingies

It was not until the 14th century that scientists created the first sophisticated astronomical clocks. The Antikythera mechanism, with its precision gears bearing teeth about a millimeter long, is completely unlike anything else from the ancient world.  It seems that the device could be used to predict the positions of the sun, moon and planets on any specific day in the past or future. The maker of the machine would have had to calibrate it with the known positions of these bodies. A user could then simply turn a crank to the desired time frame to see astronomical predictions. The mechanism displayed positions, for instance, on a “zodiac dial” on the front of the mechanism, where the ecliptic was divided into a dozen 30-degree sections representing the constellations of the zodiac.