Customer Reviews

Decoding the Heavens: Solving the Mystery of the World's First Computer. by Jo Marchant

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It is often interesting to compare how science writers transmit information. NASA is a straight forward, just the facts sort of provider.

"What is it? It was found at the bottom of the sea aboard an ancient Greek ship. Its seeming complexity has prompted decades of study, although many of its functions remained unknown. X-rays have now confirmed the nature of the Antikythera mechanism ... a mechanical computer of an accuracy thought impossible in 80 BC, when the ship that carried it sunk. ... Its wheels and gears create a portable orrery of the sky that predicted star and planet locations as well as lunar and solar eclipses."

Jo Marchant is just as informative in her excellent first book, but poetical and humanistic as well:

"In a corner of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens is something that doesn't fit. It is nothing like the classical Greek statues and vases that fill the rest of the echoing hall. Three flat pieces of what looks like mouldy, green cardboard are delicately suspended inside a glass case. Within each piece, layers of what was once metal have been squashed together and are now covered with corrosion products - from the whitish green of tin oxide to the dark bluish green of copper chloride. They've been under the sea for 2,000 years, and it shows. Next to these strange items an X-ray image shows what's hidden inside. Beneath the ancient, calcified surfaces, delicate cogwheels of all sizes are jostling for space, their triangular teeth so perfectly formed it seems that any second they might start clicking round. The design of the mechanism is modern and instantly recognisable. It looks just like the inside of an alarm clock."

She makes the X-ray process come alive:

"Andrew Ramsey tapped his computer keyboard to scroll down through the depth of the fragment. At first all they could see was a blur, but then a crackling sharp gearwheel emerged from the fuzz, as if being hauled up out of grey sand. It was better than any of them had dared hope. The letters `ME' had been scratched into the side of the wheel. It was like a signal from the past, an `I WOZ ERE' from 2,000 years ago. Suddenly, they felt a direct, almost physical conncection with this ancient machine, and with whoever had carved those letters so long ago. Then Tony Freeth started to laugh. `Somebody email Mike and tell him we've found a gearwheel with his initials on!'"

She predicts the future:

"It's possible that more missing fragments of the Antikythera mechanism might be found at the Athens museum, lying unrecognised in the stores since they were brought up from the sunken ship in 1901. The wreck, too, might yet yield more secrets. But the richest source of new information may turn out to be old Islamic manuscripts. Work to interpret these is in its infancy and there are thousands of manuscripts that have never been catalogued, let alone read."

Both methods of transmission have their value, of course, and Marchant maintains an excellent website devoted to the book and the Antikythera mechanism just as NASA informs interested readers daily on events in astronomy and space. But Marchant's excellent book -- it reads like a scientific thriller -- can deliver hours of pleasure along with creditable information. It sure did for me.

Robert C. Ross 2009

Author Jo Marchant has created a book that makes the "Indiana Jones" adventure movies seem boring! Her book is not some fictional archeological novel written in some protected writer's den - but "Decoding the Heavens" is the real deal. The book provides new insights and even greater questions that have been left unanswered by science and history. The story is absolutely amazing, as told by a talented and gifted writer. She takes history, science and math and weaves a tale that is both entertaining and educational.

The book details more than 100 years of effort to unravel the mysteries surrounding an old Greek device. This old archaeological fragment acts in some ways very much like today's modern computers, in that it is able to provide data and information. Who designed it and more importantly how - become the quest for the author, as she explored the roots and origins and mysteries of this 2,000 year old Antikythera mechanism.

This is really a surprisingly good read - I was not expecting such a great story. It is - as the old express goes - a book you cannot put down! A most throughly enjoyable experience and one that leaves you in awe and wonder! I fully recommend this book and give it The American Authors Association's highest book rating of FIVE STARS!

This is a combination Roman-era history work, archaeological study, mathematical analysis, and detective novel, all rolled into one -- but written more engagingly than any book of history, archaeology, math or forensic analysis.

Marchant studies what is now known as the "Antikythera mechanism", a remarkable archaeological find dating back to 70-60BC. After more than a century of on-again, off-again study, scholars finally (in 2005) concluded that it is an extremely sophisticated astronomical computer. It completely upends centuries of research that has assumed that the Greeks, apart from a handful of scholars such as Euclid, Archimedes and Aristarchus, were relatively backward scientifically.

Marchant has done her homework well, and has written her topic in a very readable yet uncompromising style. One warning, though: make sure you have several hours blanked out -- you won't be able to put it down.