The Unknown Technology in Homer

The Unknown Technology in Homer PDF Author: S. A. Paipetis
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048125146
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
Using such terms as science and technology, which have been relatively - cently adopted, to write about situations and events that occurred 2,500 years ago, may be a paradox. The Homeric Epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, refer to the Mycenean Era, a civilisation that ?ourished from the 16th to 12th c- tury BCE. The seeming paradox ceases to be one when modern specialists, searching through the ancients texts, discover knowledge and applications so advanced, that can be termed as scienti?c or technological in the modern sense of the words. The present book is based on extensive research performed by the author and his associates at the University of Patras, along with the presentations of other researchers at two international symposia, which he organized in 1 Ancient Olympia. It consists of ?ve parts, of which Part I is introductory, including such chapters as Homer and Homeric Epics, Troy and the mythological causes of the War, Achilles and his wrath, the siege and fall of Troy, Odysseus’ long way home, the Trojan war and the cultural tradition, scienti?c knowledge in the Homeric Epics and ?nally an account on science and technology. Part II includes three chapters on applications of principles of natural s- ence, including chariot racing and the laws of curvilinear motion, creep in wood and hydrodynamics of vortices and the gravitational sling.

The Unknown Technology in Homer

The Unknown Technology in Homer PDF Author: S. A. Paipetis
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048125146
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 206

Get Book Here

Book Description
Using such terms as science and technology, which have been relatively - cently adopted, to write about situations and events that occurred 2,500 years ago, may be a paradox. The Homeric Epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, refer to the Mycenean Era, a civilisation that ?ourished from the 16th to 12th c- tury BCE. The seeming paradox ceases to be one when modern specialists, searching through the ancients texts, discover knowledge and applications so advanced, that can be termed as scienti?c or technological in the modern sense of the words. The present book is based on extensive research performed by the author and his associates at the University of Patras, along with the presentations of other researchers at two international symposia, which he organized in 1 Ancient Olympia. It consists of ?ve parts, of which Part I is introductory, including such chapters as Homer and Homeric Epics, Troy and the mythological causes of the War, Achilles and his wrath, the siege and fall of Troy, Odysseus’ long way home, the Trojan war and the cultural tradition, scienti?c knowledge in the Homeric Epics and ?nally an account on science and technology. Part II includes three chapters on applications of principles of natural s- ence, including chariot racing and the laws of curvilinear motion, creep in wood and hydrodynamics of vortices and the gravitational sling.

The Antikythera Mechanism

The Antikythera Mechanism PDF Author: Evaggelos G. Vallianatos
Publisher: Universal-Publishers
ISBN: 162734358X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
In Antikythera Mechanism: The Story Behind the Genius of the Greek Computer and Its Demise, Evaggelos Vallianatos, historian and ecopolitical theorist, shows that after the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BCE, the Greeks, especially in Egypt, reached unprecedented heights of achievements in science, technology, and civilization. The Antikythera Mechanism, an astronomical computer probably crafted in Rhodes in the second century BCE, was proof of that prowess. It’s the grandfather of our computers. Greek sponge divers discovered the Antikythera Mechanism in 1900 on a 2,100-year-old Roman-era shipwreck. The hand-powered device reveals a sophisticated Greek technology previously unknown to scholars and historians, not seen and understood again until the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The book not only describes how the sophisticated political and technological infrastructure of the Greeks after Alexander the Great resulted in the Antikythera celestial computer, and the bedrock of science and technology we know today, but also how the influence of Christianity on Greek civilization destroyed the nascent computer age of ancient Greece. Vallianatos, born in Greece and educated in America, is a historian, author, and journalist. He is a passionate champion of Greek culture and a well-suited guide to this historical account. Vallianatos explains how and why Greek scientists employed advanced engineering in translating the beautiful conception of the Antikythera Mechanism into an astronomical computer of genius: a bronze-geared device of mathematical astronomy, predicting the eclipses of the Sun and the Moon; calculating the risings and settings of important stars and constellations, and the movements of the planets around the Sun; while mechanizing the predictions of scientific theories. The computer’s accurate calendar connected these cosmic phenomena to the Olympics and other major Panhellenic religious and athletic celebrations, bringing the Greeks closer to their gods, traditions, and the Cosmos.

A Study Guide for Homer's Odyssey

A Study Guide for Homer's Odyssey PDF Author: Gale, Cengage Learning
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
ISBN: 1410335097
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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Book Description


Artificial Intelligence in Greek and Roman Epic

Artificial Intelligence in Greek and Roman Epic PDF Author: Andriana Domouzi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350260711
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This is the first scholarly exploration of concepts and representations of Artificial Intelligence in ancient Greek and Roman epic, including their reception in later literature and culture. Contributors look at how Hesiod, Homer, Apollonius of Rhodes, Moschus, Ovid and Valerius Flaccus crafted the first literary concepts concerned with automata and the quest for artificial life, as well as technological intervention improving human life. Parts one and two consider, respectively, archaic Greek, and Hellenistic and Roman, epics. Contributors explore the representations of Pandora in Hesiod, and Homeric automata such as Hephaestus' wheeled tripods, the Phaeacian king Alcinous' golden and silver guard dogs, and even the Trojan Horse. Later examples cover Artificial Intelligence and automation (including Talos) in the Argonautica of Apollonius and Valerius Flaccus, and Pygmalion's ivory woman in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Part three underlines how these concepts benefit from analysis of the ekphrasis device, within which they often feature. These chapters investigate the cyborg potential of the epic hero and the literary implications of ancient technology. Moving into contemporary examples, the final chapters consider the reception of ancient literary Artificial Intelligence in contemporary film and literature, such as the Czech science-fiction epic Starvoyage, or Small Cosmic Odyssey by Jan Kr?esadlo (1995) and the British science-fiction novel The Holy Machine by Chris Beckett (2004).

Prosthetics and Assistive Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome

Prosthetics and Assistive Technology in Ancient Greece and Rome PDF Author: Jane Draycott
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009200526
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This is the first comprehensive study of prosthetics and assistive technology in classical antiquity, integrating literary, documentary, archaeological, and bioarchaeological evidence to provide as full a picture as possible of their importance for the lived experience of people with disabilities in classical antiquity. The volume is not only a work of disability history, but also one of medical, scientific, and technological history, and so will be of interest to members of multiple academic disciplines across multiple historical periods. The chapters cover extremity prostheses, facial prostheses, prosthetic hair, the design, commission and manufacture of prostheses and assistive technology, and the role of care-givers in the lives of ancient people with impairments and disabilities. Lavishly illustrated, the study further contains informative tables that collate the aforementioned different types of evidence in an easily accessible way.

Distinguished Figures in Mechanism and Machine Science

Distinguished Figures in Mechanism and Machine Science PDF Author: Marco Ceccarelli
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030323986
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
This book discusses technological developments by distinguished figures in the history of MMS (mechanism and machine science). It includes biographies of well-known scientists, describing their efforts, experiences and achievements and offering a modern interpretation of their legacy. This volume includes scientists from a wide range of time periods, academic disciplines, and geographical backgrounds, such as Giovanni Bianchi, Homer, Taqi Al-Din, Jacques de Vaucanson, Ma Jun, Xu Baosheng, Alexander Alexandrovich Golovin, Francesco di Giorgio and Cesare Rossi. Covering a wide range of figures within the field of history of mechanical engineering, with a particular focus on MMS, this fourth volume is of interest to, and will inspire the work (historical or not) of many.

Gods and Robots

Gods and Robots PDF Author: Adrienne Mayor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691202265
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
Traces the story of how ancient cultures envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices and human enhancements, sharing insights into how the mythologies of the past related to and shaped ancient machine innovations.

Tin and Global Capitalism, 1850-2000

Tin and Global Capitalism, 1850-2000 PDF Author: Mats Ingulstad
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317816102
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
For most of the twentieth century tin was fundamental for both warfare and welfare. The importance of tin is most powerfully represented by the tin can - an invention which created a revolution in food preservation and helped feed both the armies of the great powers and the masses of the new urban society. The trouble with tin was that economically viable deposits of the metal could only be found in a few regions of the world, predominantly in the southern hemisphere, while the main centers of consumption were in the industrialized north. The tin trade was therefore a highly politically charged economy in which states and private enterprise competed and cooperated to assert control over deposits, smelters and markets. Tin provides a particularly telling illustration of how the interactions of business and governments shape the evolution of the global economic trade; the tin industry has experienced extensive state intervention during times of war, encompasses intense competition and cartelization, and has seen industry centers both thrive and fail in the wake of decolonization. The history of the international tin industry reveals the complex interactions and interdependencies between local actors and international networks, decolonization and globalization, as well as government foreign policies and entrepreneurial tactics. By highlighting the global struggles for control and the constantly shifting economic, geographical and political constellations within one specific industry, this collection of essays brings the state back into business history, and the firm into the history of international relations.

Themes of the Trojan Cycle

Themes of the Trojan Cycle PDF Author: Miguel Carvalho Abrantes
Publisher: Miguel Carvalho Abrantes
ISBN: 8829541532
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 195

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Book Description
The story of the Trojan War presented in the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer, is incomplete. This book completes it. Originally presented as a thesis in the University of Coimbra (Portugal), this book reconstructs the plot of the Trojan War between the Iliad and the Odyssey. In order to do so, it uses the direct knowledge the authors of the Antiquity had of those subjects, but also iconographic sources, presenting them all and showing how they contribute to a faithful reconstruction of the Trojan Cycle, as it was known over 2000 years ago. Among the episodes reconstructed here are, for example, the battle against Penthesilea, the death of Achilles and the famous ruse of the Trojan Horse. This is a work interesting not only for those who already read the Iliad and the Odyssey, but also for everyone who has some interest in Greek and Roman Mythology.

Exact Sciences in Greek Antiquity

Exact Sciences in Greek Antiquity PDF Author: John G. Dellis
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527536130
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
This book consists of 24 papers on ancient Greek science and technology. It covers such areas as mathematics, physics, engineering, astronomical methods and instruments, and environmental issues. A great variety of topics are discussed, including medical care in ancient Olympiads, mathematical concepts in Plato, the concept of the rate of change in various mathematical areas and the concept of symmetry in ancient Greece. Aristotle’s Physics on free falling bodies, world-structure formation and matter according to the Presocratics, acoustic phenomena in archaeological sites, Trojan Horse reconstruction, offensive and defensive weapons in Homer’s epics, and telecommunications in ancient Greece are also some of the issues addressed here. This book will be an important resource to physicists, mathematicians, engineers, archaeologists, historians, and philologists.