what was the first computer well that depends a lot on what you mean by
computer I mean we're all used to stored program general purpose digital
computers but those have only been around for less than a hundred years the
first aniac or the electronic numerical
integrator and computer was created for the US Military and was completed only
in 1945 by the literal meaning of the word
a computer is a person or tool that makes calculations people whose Prim
role is to quickly do large amounts of math have existed as long as complex
societies have thanks to things like taxes however if we want to know what
the first formal computational tool was
well an obvious candidate is the Abacus neither of those feels like a satisfying
answer though and you probably wouldn't accept either in a game of trivia if you
were on my team yes but if I was playing against you definitely not if we instead
take computer to mean a machine designed to model solve a theoretical problem
well the first known computer is still surprisingly ancient the antia mechanism
is a bronze mechanical device about the size of a large book that was discovered
in 1901 inside of a Greek shipwreck that
sank over 2,000 years ago the device was
found to contain surprisingly small interlocking gears the largest being 5
in in diameter and it was later determined to be a kind of hand cranked
analog computer its purpose was most likely to calculate how the positions of
the Sun the moon and the known planets would change with the passage of time
allowing the user to predict eclipses keep in mind that this was back when
academics had the Earth in the center of the planetary system rather than the Sun
so if this thing was in any way accurate
it must have been crazy complicated while it's unlikely that this kind of
complex mechanism was common 2,000 years
ago it raises the possibility that other oddly Advanced devices from the era once
existed and have simply been lost to time we do know of other simpler devices
from this time like the planisphere a type of adjustable star chart that can
show which stars will be visible on a given date and the astrola another kind
of star chart which could be used to track heavenly bodies and solve
spherical trigonometry problems making it useful for navigation but the Greeks
aren't the only ancient civilization where we've discovered evidence of early
analog computers according to Chinese writings engineer M Jun created what is
called a South pointing Chariot in the 3rd Century this was a mechanical device
stylized to look like a doll pointing its finger the doll would sit at top the
roof of your chariot and it would Point continuously in One Direction no matter
which way the Chariot turned now to do this it used a differential gear that
would compensate for the Turning of the wheels keeping the device pointed the
same direction it was set to at the beginning of the journey for for
cultural reasons they were set to Point South if that seems odd just remember
modern magnetic compasses don't actually Point North they align themselves with
the globe's magnetic field meaning they Point both North and South we just think
of them as only pointing North for our own arbitrary cultural reasons in any
case this kind of old school GPS had some pretty serious limitations with
modern technology we can create extremely precise gears but small
inconsistencies in these third Century gears would compound over the course of
even relatively short Journeys causing the device to gradually drift over time
realistically you'd only be able to travel a few miles before that drift
became significant and its orientation would need to be reset and that's before
the gears started to wear unevenly with use also a mechanical device that can
only solve one problem where is South is
pretty limited so what was the first programmable machine we'll tell you
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special deal with with a risk-free 30-day money back guarantee one possible
candidate for the world's first programmable machine is found in the
book of ingenious devices which was written by the Banu Musa Brothers of
Persia and published in the year 850 the
book describes a number of mechanical devices including an automatic water
fountain hot and cold running Taps and a
pressure sensor they also included a steam powered flute and a water-powered
organ both instruments could be programmed by swapping out a cylinder
with raised pins indicating notes in order to play different music you can
find a similar cylinder mechanism in modern-day windup music boxes which have
largely been replaced with Tik Tok arguably the first analog computers that
wound up widely used by the average person were clocks human beings have
been trying to devise more and more precise methods of measuring time for
thousands of years using everything from Shadows to water to sand to incense to
candles to gravity tried basically everything while the average hunter or
farmer probably didn't need to know what time it was beyond morning noon and
night just try to imagine running a government without clocks how are you
supposed to schedule a meeting you could try a pigeon based conference call but
you just know that none of your scribes are wearing pants it just it's icky the
first known clock with gears goes back to the 3rd Century BC a century prior to
the antitha mechanism and was created by the math ician Archimedes it was waterp
powerered like many earlier clocks but it also blew a whistle and it made a
little model owl flap its wings to Mark the hour making it kind of the world's
first cuckoo clock so C kudos to him fully mechanical
clocks wouldn't arise until the 12th century mechanical calculators wouldn't
come about until the 17th un odd aspect
of the history of these kinds of devices is that they were variously invented
lost rediscovered reinvented and passed
back and forth between different civilizations in the modern day we tend
to take for granted that the invention of the steam engine kicked off the
Industrial Revolution and that the invention of the programmable Loom
inevitably led to the general purpose digital computer and at the risk of
going a bit off topic it's notable that not only did ancient engineers create a
number of astonishing Analog Devices and complex machines they also created their
own steam engine writings from the first first century BCE by Roman architect
Vitruvius describe a kind of simple steam engine while it couldn't have been
particularly powerful or efficient it both worked and produced torque with the
information we have it's unclear if this engine or anything like it was ever put
to practical use it may have been just a novelty or educational device used to
demonstrate the physics of weather it's fun to imagine however what would have
happened if ancient Scholars had continued developing this kind of tech
could we have had an industrial Revolution that began in ancient Greece
rather than in 18th century Britain or alternatively will we wind up losing the
knowledge we have now only to ReDiscover it in another 2,000 years quick print
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