The machine that can calculate the time of the eclipse is made from a child’s constructor

Around the hundredth year B.C. engineers in ancient Greece developed a complex machine that was called the Antikythera mechanism. The machine is essentially the first mechanical computer capable of calculating the time and date of a certain astronomical phenomenon, such as a lunar or solar eclipse. And now one craftsman managed to create an exact copy of this car, and not just create, and create from a child’s constructor and even workable.

This craftsman is Andrew Kerol, who is a software engineer at Apple. The author used fifteen hundred parts of the LEGO TECHNIC set, which have a more complicated structure than the parts of the children’s construction set, with which kids assemble small houses, cars … The tiny replica of the Antikythera mechanism consists of more than a hundred and ten parts, which are combined into four gearboxes. One such box is a mechanical computer calculator that solves one equation in one period. If you set the machine current time, it easily calculates the time and date of the next eclipse, whether it is lunar or solar.