Product Description

In 1900, a group of sponge divers blown off course in the Mediterranean discovered an Ancient Greek shipwreck dating from around 70 BC. Lying unnoticed for months amongst their hard-won haul was what appeared to be a formless lump of corroded rock, which turned out to be the most stunning scientific artefact we have from antiquity. For more than a century this 'Antikythera mechanism' puzzled academics, but now, more than 2000 years after the device was lost at sea, scientists have pieced together its intricate workings. In "Decoding the Heavens", Jo Marchant tells for the first time the story of the 100-year quest to understand this ancient computer. Along the way she unearths a diverse cast of remarkable characters - ranging from Archimedes to Jacques Cousteau - and explores the deep roots of modern technology not only in Ancient Greece, the Islamic world and medieval Europe.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5798 in Books
• Published on: 2009-08-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

About the Author
Jo Marchant is Opinion Editor at New Scientist magazine. She has a PhD in medical microbiology and has been a science journalist for nine years. She spent three years of that as an editor at the journal Nature, and her articles have also appeared in the Guardian and The Economist. She lives with her boyfriend in Brixton, London.

Customer Reviews

Across the universe....
A delightful book that you'll read from cover to cover in no time at all. I suspect however, that if you're anything like me, the memories 'Decoding the Heavens' will unlock and the wide-eyed enthusiasm it will awaken will last with you for a very long time. The narrative unfolds like a well-crafted documentary revealing the discovery of an ancient shipwreck off the coast of a small Greek island in 1901 and the complex web of personal sacrifice, competition and politics during the following 100 years which leads to a pretty thorough understanding of the world's first computer - the 'Antikythera Mechanism'.

I won't spoil the 'plot' just in case you haven't read up that closely on all of the amazing things this device could do, but suffice to say, it humbles inventions made a millennium later and demonstrates an incredible knowledge of the cosmos and miniature engineering that would have transformed our planet if this evolutionary branch-line in human ingenuity hadn't died out. Perhaps we'd be beginning our journeys to the stars today instead of just photographing them.

This book made me feel like a kid again: I want to look at the stars on a clear night; I want to build things with wheels and gears; I want to teach my first child ( due the next few days hopefully ) about the history of our species, about the interplay of myth and technology that for better or worse has always driven us on.

If you liked "Longitude", you will love this
This is a terrific book that describes the discovery of an ancient Greek artifact in a shipwreck, its dating and possible history, and the detective story of how its complex mechanism was eventually decoded over a period of 100 years, requiring the use of the most modern scanning technology. The artifact, which is known as the "Antikythera Mechanism", is an astonishing astromonical calculator whose technological sophistication is some 1000 to 1500 years before its known time.

Coo!
As exciting as any thriller - and just so fascinating to read on several levels. One is to marvel at what was created, so long ago (and not until fairly recently would there be an equivalent scientific object with this capability): the other is to read with widening eyes the detailed detective work - and the skulduggery!