Decoding the Heavens
  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409060475
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

Decoding the Heavens

How the Antikythera Mechanism Changed The World

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EBook
1 Sep 2010
Paperback
1 Oct 2009
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The fascinating story of the discovery of, and subsequent quest to decode, the world's first computer

In 1900 a group of sponge divers blown off course in the Mediterranean discovered an Ancient Greek shipwreck near the island of Antikythera 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' - an ancient computer - 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 the Antikythera mechanism. 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.
  • Published: 1 September 2010
  • ISBN: 9781409060475
  • Imprint: Cornerstone Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352
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About the author

Jo Marchant

Jo Marchant is a freelance journalist specialising in science and history. Until recenlty she was a consultant 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 in Brixton, London .

Praise for Decoding the Heavens

A delightful book

Metro

A dizzyingly brilliant thing ... the Antikythera mechanism bears a chilling message for our technological age

Telegraph

A fabulous piece of storytelling, thick with plot, intrigue, science, historical colour and metaphysical speculation. The mechanism is fascinating - but the larger question of why its knowledge was lost, and what else with it, is mind-blowing

Metro

An informative and thoroughly researched book

Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday

Compelling

Guardian

Fascinating and wide-ranging account of 'the world's first computer' ... marvellous

Daily Mail

Pacy, yet full of fascinating scientific digressions

Telegraph

Sunken treasure. A mysterious artefact. Scrambled inscriptions. Warring academic egos. Technology 1,000 years before its time. [This] tale of a wondrous relic ... sounds like pulp fiction. But it's all true ... Puts ancient Greece in a whole new light

The Independent

Though it is more than 2,000 years old, the Antikythera Mechanism represents a level that our technology did not match until the 18th century, and must therefore rank as one of the greatest basic mechanical inventions of all time. I hope [this] book will rekindle interest in this artefact, which still remains under-rated

Arthur C. Clarke