A Portable Cosmos by Alexander Jones
From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Terracotta Army, ancient artifacts have long fascinated the modern world. However, the importance of some discoveries is not always immediately understood. This was the case in 1901 when sponge divers retrieved a lump of corroded bronze from a shipwreck at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea near the Greek island of Antikythera. Little did the divers know they had found the oldest known analog computer in the world, an astonishing device that once simulated the motions of the stars and planets as they were understood by ancient Greek astronomers. Its remains now consist of 82 fragments, many of them containing gears and plates engraved with Greek words, that scientists and scholars have pieced back together through painstaking inspection and deduction, aided by radiographic tools and surface imaging. More than a century after its discovery, many of the secrets locked in this mysterious device can now be revealed. In addition to chronicling the unlikely discovery of the Antikythera Mechanism, author Alexander Jones takes readers through a discussion of how the device worked, how and for what purpose it was created, and why it was on a ship that wrecked off the Greek coast around 60 BC. What the Mechanism has uncovered about Greco-Roman astronomy and scientific technology, and their place in Greek society, is truly amazing. The mechanical know-how that it embodied was more advanced than anything the Greeks were previously thought capable of, but the most recent research has revealed that its displays were designed so that an educated layman could understand the behavior of astronomical phenomena, and how intertwined they were with one's natural and social environment. It was at once a masterpiece of machinery as well as one of the first portable teaching devices. Written by a world-renowned expert on the Mechanism, A Portable Cosmos will fascinate all readers interested in ancient history, archaeology, and the history of science.
The book is a triumph at several levels, as an account of high-grade detective work, as an exposition of ancient astronomical ideas, and as a disquisition on where those ideas fitted into the society that produced them... This is recommended reading for anyone interested in ancient astronomy. * Geoffrey Lloyd, Journal for the History of Astronomy *
This book will be invaluable to those engaged in the study of the science of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Endnotes and references will assist individuals who wish to delve into further research. The presented black-and-white photographs and drawings are essential to understanding the work's subject matter. ... Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. * M. Dickinson, CHOICE *
[Jones] presents a very readable account of the Mechanism, and the consensus of what it was used for... [An] excellent 'User Manual'. * Journal of the British Astronomical Association *
Jones has, in short, produced a superb guide to this dazzling embodiment of ancient astronomical knowledge and mechanical technology. Detailed enough that even scholars of ancient science will learn much, yet readable enough that undergraduate students will find it approachable (I myself have tested out both audiences), this book ends the long wait for a thorough, reliable, and accessible guide to the Antikythera Mechanism. * Courtney Roby, Cornell University, in Classical World *
This is a remarkable book about a remarkable device. After reading A Portable Cosmos, the Antikythera Mechanism seems a little less different and strange, a little less impossible but no less of an ancient wonder. In clear and lucid prose, Alexander Jones has successfully integrated all the necessary literary, archaeological, and forensic evidence relevant to the Mechanism. The result is a detailed, thorough, and perceptive analysis which will surely stand as the definitive handbook on the Antikythera Mechanism for some time to come. * Alex Nice, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
[Jones] provides just enough general context for readers to understand the astronomical background, while being just technical enough for them to feel that they have a grasp of the object's complexity. * Serafina Cuomo, London Review of Books *
Convincing. * Andrew Robinson, History Today *
As riveting as any thriller or criminal investigation... Jones's text... is precise but calm, elegant and with a certain charm... We need more books like this. * Michael Bywater, Spectator *
Jones takes the reader on a journey through the various years of research into the mechanism's background, as well as into the device itself, awarding a glimpse beneath the corroded surface and into the interior gears and cogs. * Jade Fell, Engineering and Technology *
Jones' book is written in such a way that makes it profitable reading for a wide range of readers, from the specialists on the Mechanism to those who have never heard of it. * Efthymios Nicolaidis, Almagest *
His virtue as an author is an exhaustive knowledge of his subject ... refreshingly candid * John J. Miller, Wall Street Journal Europe *
A nimble, comprehensive survey of a wondrous machine * Barbara Kiser, Nature *
A Portable Cosmos is set to become the definitive history of the Antikythera Mechanism, and will be of great value to specialists, as well as students and those interested in ancient Greco-Roman science and technology. * Liba Taub, University of Cambridge *
Jones's text, too, is precise but calm, elegant and with a certain charm. His learning is broad: here's Ptolemy, here are gear ratios, here's Cicero and Galen, Babylonians, planets, lunar months, Glauco, epicyclics and the 'Spindle of Necessity'. And it is not just the cosmos that is demonstrated, but the vast difference, and astonishing similarity, between us and our ancestors. So out of the history of science comes a sense of our humanity and the ancient desire to comprehend. God knows, it's timely, in the shrivelled cosmos we are building. We need more books like this. And probably more sponge-divers, too. * Michael Bywater, The Spectator *
A Portable Cosmos is both an excellent focussed case study of an individual object and a comprehensive broader treatment of the relevant aspects of ancient science and technology. It is beautifully and thoughtfully illustrated, with numerous diagrams and photographs placed strategically throughout, not just of the mechanism but of various other relevant ancient objects such as calendar and other almanac-style parapegma inscriptions, manuscripts, astrolabes etc. I shall definitely be adding it to the syllabi of my 'Nature and the Natural World in Antiquity' and 'Ancient Technology' courses, and I recommend that other instructors do the same. * Jane Draycott, Classics for All *
This book will be invaluable to those engaged in the study of the science of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Endnotes and references will assist individuals who wish to delve into further research. The presented black-and-white photographs and drawings are essential to understanding the work's subject matter. ... Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals. * M. Dickinson, CHOICE *
[Jones] presents a very readable account of the Mechanism, and the consensus of what it was used for... [An] excellent 'User Manual'. * Journal of the British Astronomical Association *
Jones has, in short, produced a superb guide to this dazzling embodiment of ancient astronomical knowledge and mechanical technology. Detailed enough that even scholars of ancient science will learn much, yet readable enough that undergraduate students will find it approachable (I myself have tested out both audiences), this book ends the long wait for a thorough, reliable, and accessible guide to the Antikythera Mechanism. * Courtney Roby, Cornell University, in Classical World *
This is a remarkable book about a remarkable device. After reading A Portable Cosmos, the Antikythera Mechanism seems a little less different and strange, a little less impossible but no less of an ancient wonder. In clear and lucid prose, Alexander Jones has successfully integrated all the necessary literary, archaeological, and forensic evidence relevant to the Mechanism. The result is a detailed, thorough, and perceptive analysis which will surely stand as the definitive handbook on the Antikythera Mechanism for some time to come. * Alex Nice, Bryn Mawr Classical Review *
[Jones] provides just enough general context for readers to understand the astronomical background, while being just technical enough for them to feel that they have a grasp of the object's complexity. * Serafina Cuomo, London Review of Books *
Convincing. * Andrew Robinson, History Today *
As riveting as any thriller or criminal investigation... Jones's text... is precise but calm, elegant and with a certain charm... We need more books like this. * Michael Bywater, Spectator *
Jones takes the reader on a journey through the various years of research into the mechanism's background, as well as into the device itself, awarding a glimpse beneath the corroded surface and into the interior gears and cogs. * Jade Fell, Engineering and Technology *
Jones' book is written in such a way that makes it profitable reading for a wide range of readers, from the specialists on the Mechanism to those who have never heard of it. * Efthymios Nicolaidis, Almagest *
His virtue as an author is an exhaustive knowledge of his subject ... refreshingly candid * John J. Miller, Wall Street Journal Europe *
A nimble, comprehensive survey of a wondrous machine * Barbara Kiser, Nature *
A Portable Cosmos is set to become the definitive history of the Antikythera Mechanism, and will be of great value to specialists, as well as students and those interested in ancient Greco-Roman science and technology. * Liba Taub, University of Cambridge *
Jones's text, too, is precise but calm, elegant and with a certain charm. His learning is broad: here's Ptolemy, here are gear ratios, here's Cicero and Galen, Babylonians, planets, lunar months, Glauco, epicyclics and the 'Spindle of Necessity'. And it is not just the cosmos that is demonstrated, but the vast difference, and astonishing similarity, between us and our ancestors. So out of the history of science comes a sense of our humanity and the ancient desire to comprehend. God knows, it's timely, in the shrivelled cosmos we are building. We need more books like this. And probably more sponge-divers, too. * Michael Bywater, The Spectator *
A Portable Cosmos is both an excellent focussed case study of an individual object and a comprehensive broader treatment of the relevant aspects of ancient science and technology. It is beautifully and thoughtfully illustrated, with numerous diagrams and photographs placed strategically throughout, not just of the mechanism but of various other relevant ancient objects such as calendar and other almanac-style parapegma inscriptions, manuscripts, astrolabes etc. I shall definitely be adding it to the syllabi of my 'Nature and the Natural World in Antiquity' and 'Ancient Technology' courses, and I recommend that other instructors do the same. * Jane Draycott, Classics for All *
Alexander Jones is a classicist and historian of science whose interests center on astronomy and related scientific traditions in the Greco-Roman world and the ancient Near East. Before joining the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World in 2008, he was for many years on the faculty of the Department of Classics and the Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780199739349 |
| ISBN 10 | 019973934X |
| Title | A Portable Cosmos |
| Author | Alexander Jones |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press Inc |
| Year published | 2017-03-23 |
| Number of pages | 312 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |