But this particular image has nothing to do with medicine, or even traditional radiology. Rather, it pertains to astronomy and archeology.
This is the famous Antikythera mechanism, found in the Mediterranean Sea, discovered in a shipwreck in 1901, off the coast of the Greek island, Antikythera. That's the origin of the name of the mechanism, in case you were wondering. It is the world's oldest known analog computer.
Recently, radiography has been used to figure out the inner workings, and to confirm theories about the nature of the device. It was the subject of an article in Scientific American in 1959, and is featured on the website, World-mysteries.com.
Now, it is featured in Science News, with updated information. It has been found to contain 30 hand-made metal gears.
To make sense of that shattered structure, astronomer Michael G. Edmunds of Cardiff University in Wales and his colleagues have now applied two advanced imaging techniques to the shards. One is X-ray computer tomography, which records views of an object like those produced by a medical CT scanner. A high-power X-ray source penetrated the dense relic with a beam narrow enough to reveal fine details, says Andrew Ramsey, a tomography specialist with X-Tek Systems in Tring, England.
"The computer tomography images of the mechanism have literally opened the device up to us to see how it worked," comments ancient-astronomy scholar John M. Steele of the University of Durham in England.
The researchers also applied a novel computer-enhanced, optical-imaging technique for examining surface features.
Imagine someone putting that kind of effort, someday, into examining an ancient Texas Instruments calculator.
It has been confirmed that the Antikythera mechanism was used for astronomical calculations.
The top picture is from Wikipedia; the lower one is too, but I first found it on Astronomy Picture of the Day. As an aside, the Wikipedia article, (linked above) now is in need of a "total rewrite," according to the editors. Anyone who wants practice writing about obscure topics, for free, is encouraged to contribute.
Comments
Now for the working model?
Posted by: Alex | December 7, 2006 7:16 AM