Rebuilding the Antikythera Mechanism out of Lego

Andrew Carol, an engineer at Apple, has rebuilt a model of the ancient Antikythera Mechanism entirely out of Lego blocks. Watch this amazing 3-minute video:

A fuller story behind all this is here. I feel like running out and buying out the entire stock of Lego from some unsuspecting toy store.

I was just talking with an older colleague of mine yesterday — he’s been teaching math at my college for over 50 years — about how technology has changed since he started, and I remarked that in many ways I’m more amazed by the mechanical calculator technology of the 50′s and 60′s than I am by modern digital computers. I remember my Dad bringing home an old mechanical calculator from his work and opening it up to reveal gears upon gears inside. Watching this video reminds me of that.

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