Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World's First Computer |
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Author:
Jo Marchant
By Windmill Books
Average Customer Rating: 
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.31
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Product Description
Tells the story of the 100-year quest to understand an ancient computer, the scientific artefact we have from antiquity. This title reveals a diverse cast of characters - ranging from Archimedes to Jacques Cousteau - and explores the roots of modern technology in Ancient Greece, the Islamic world and medieval Europe.
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 Coo!, 2009-12-02
As exciting as any thriller - and just so fascinating to read on several levels. One is to marvel at what was created, so long ago (and not until fairly recently would there be an equivalent scientific object with this capability): the other is to read with widening eyes the detailed detective work - and the skulduggery!
 Decoding the Heavens, 2010-03-03
I bought this book because it looked interesting. However, I found it very slow, and ponderous. So much so that if you have troble seeping - this is ideal!
 Very disappointing, 2010-04-11
I found this a very disappointing book, perhaps my expectations had been too high. The narrative of the human interaction of the various investigators was interesting but my frustration with trying to understand the purpose or workings of the mechanism grew with every page.
A picture (or diagram) is worth a thousand words it is said; I doubt if most people could picture the workings from (tedious) descriptions like "the little wheel with seven teeth on the same axle drove the larger wheel with 59 teeth" ..... and so on and on.......
There were some photographs after page 184 including half a dozen of the mechanism (small) - then eventually we have the only two (!) diagrams on pages 247 and 258. Far, far too little far too late I fear.
Then we get to know in the acknowledgments that the author did not have the full co-operation of the latest investigators.
A shame as the full potential was not realised.
A good book about an object that changed our view of ancient astronomy and technlogy., 2010-05-30
This book tells three stories. The first is about the discovery of the Antikythera mechanism. This reads like an adventure story; not one of the most exciting ones, but it is certainly interesting. The second is about the unraveling of what it was for. It is this latter story that has radically changed our view of ancient technology and astronomy. This stories has been, and still is to some extent, surrounded by controversy. The book tells how initially the Antikythera mechanism was studied by few people, and more or less ignored by most other researchers. This did not really change when it slowly became clear how sophisticated it was. In fact, this was simply not believed. The third story is the description of the mechanism itself. The author does this in quite some detail. This story is not finished, because not all of the details of how it originally looked like are known.
Some reviewers have written that the author has been very sloppy in his research. As this book was really my first encounter with the Antikythera mechanism, I don't know if this is really true. It did increase my interest in the subject however. So I do recommend the book.
Sloppy standards make for poor prose, 2010-04-07
Whilst this book is an interesting read, those purchasing it would do well to do some research regarding the Antikythera Mechanism, and the teams that worked on it- as there seems to be some dispute between the author and the research team as to its accuracy.
There also seems to be concern that one of the scientists written about has not been portayed in a fair manner, to the extent that his widow and friends have constructed a webpage disputing the facts of the book and publishing their memories of the man. One of the most striking is the fact that the author even fails to get the date the man died right. This is, at the very least, extremely disrespectful and disappointing from a woman who describes herself as a journalist and leads me to question the value of this book as a narrative account of events.
In response, the author claims that the proofs were submitted to a member of the team for checking. This seems a poor defence- especially when it is considered that there were many people the author did not interview who could have helped- and as a freelance researcher myself, I would like to stress to her that if you are not sure of your facts, then you should not put your name to them. And it is not too hard to check basic astronometrical details such as how many degrees the sun traverses a day (just over one- which is why we have a year 365.25 days long). All in all, disappointing and had I actually bought rather than borrowed this book, I would be writing and asking for a refund from the publisher.
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780099519768
ISBN: 0099519763
Label: Windmill Books
Manufacturer: Windmill Books
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2009-08-06
Publisher: Windmill Books
Studio: Windmill Books |
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