Tag: calendars

Categories
Mythology and Folklore People Words

Interpretatio germanica

I’m surprised I’ve never thought about this before:

More on Odin/Mercury from Wikipedia:

Scholars have noted, most recently Anthony Birley, that Odin’s apparent identification with Mercury has little to do with Mercury’s classical role of being messenger of the gods, but appears to be due to Mercury’s role of psychopomp. Other contemporary evidence may also have led to the equation of Odin with Mercury; Odin, like Mercury, may have at this time already been pictured with a staff and hat, may have been considered a trader god, and the two may have been seen as parallel in their roles as wandering deities.

For the week in full:

  • Monday/Lundi = Máni (personification of the Moon)/Luna (the Moon)
  • Tuesday/Mardi = Tyr/Mars (both Gods of War)
  • Wednesday/Mercredi = Woden/Mercury (as above)
  • Thursday/Jeudi = Thor/Jupiter (thunderbolts and lightning…)
  • Friday/Vendredi = Frigg/Venus (love)
  • Saturday/Samedi = Saturn/Day of Sabbath
  • Sunday/Dimanche = Sunna (personification of the Sun)/Day of God
Categories
Technology

Bayesian inference

The Antikythera Mechanism is a 2000 year old computer; a mechanical calendar that could calculate moon position and phase, solar eclipses, the dates of Olympiads and more. It was discovered in 1900 (it took us a hundred years to work out what it was for) and it’s the only such device we have from antiquity.

So did we luck out and happen upon the only example of such an advanced piece of technology? Or is it more likely that this is just one of many computers? Tyler Cowen talks about what Bayesian inference tells us over at Marginal Revolution:

So what to infer?  The first option is that this device was a true outlier, standing sui generis above its time.  Cardiff University professor Michael Edmunds “described the device as “just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind””.

As an artifact that is true, but is that so likely in terms of broader history?  It is pure luck that we fished this thing out of the Mediterranean in 1901.  (By the way, further dives are planned to search for more parts of it.)  The alternative possibility is that antiquity had many more such exotic devices, which have remained unreported, at least in the manuscripts which have come down to us.  That would imply, essentially, that we don’t have a very good idea of what antiquity was like.  In my view that is the more rational Bayesian conclusion.  It is more likely than thinking that we just lucked out to find this one unique, incredible device.  To put it another way, if you found some organic life on a traveling comet, you ought to conclude there is more of that life, or something related, somewhere else.