Original subtitles

is this lump of rusted

metal the oldest analog computer in the

world

over 30 gears with up to 65 teeth pigeons

really controlled this bomb

from the Second World War

they think pigeon droppings are dangerous

these pigeons throw a thousand bombs

and how does this ancient Roman

chalice change its color

that is no optical illusion the

color really changes from red to green

fascinating mysterious objects

[music]

hidden for a long time in museums laboratories and

archives

we can use the latest technology to

reveal their secrets

we can recreate them

disassemble

[music]

and enlarge them

and so forgotten

[music]

are the strangest things in the world

in a museum in Athens there is

a misshapen lump of corroded

metal

an object unique in the history of archeology

[music]

it has overturned our idea of ​​the ancient

world and

still does today

a very extraordinary thing that exists

nothing comparable that is so old

with the help of modern computer technology

we can reconstruct its original form

this is the mechanism of antikücheer

a 2000 year old device barely 30 cm

high it contains an amazing structure

of gears and hands

the mechanism is incredibly precise

and complex

around the sky to understand

1,000 years ahead of its time a

portable cosmos has been

puzzling archaeologists for more than a century

what it is all about

now research can reveal the secret

where it comes from who built it

how does it work

and what exactly is it

all begins before well 120 years ago, 60 km

off the southern tip of Greece

in 1900, sponge divers explored

a bay off the island of Antiquity.

They discovered a shipwreck from

ancient times with sculptures made of bronze and

marble but also jewelry.

Archaeologists dated the wreck based on the coins that were recovered from the seabed around 60

BC the incredible treasure makes

headlines

the rusted metal block but

receives little attention

a local archaeologist examined

the block perhaps a small

piece and he noticed a dentist

he didn't expect it the

gears and wheels lead the

archaeologists to suspect that it is It is a

relatively modern object that ended

up on the WAG by chance.

This complicated metal object seemed to have

ended up there by chance.

The curious find remained unnoticed for 40 years.

After all, it is

not ancient or is it

[Music]

In 1951, a scientist from the

University of Cambridge discovered it Attentive

the physicist Derektes examined the

mechanism in more detail and found that

it was a kind of clockwork.

During his examination, among other things,

ancient Greek letters and made

a radical claim that the object

was not modern but was actually

2000 years old - a daring thesis - it is

almost inconceivable that Such an

object comes from the ancient world.

Price analyzes further fragments and

discovers other barely visible traces.

Now he goes even further.

He claims that the object was a kind of heavenly

computer

[music]

that was considered monstrous.

Nothing like that was

known or was known from this era Only thought possible

20 years later, the

breakthrough was achieved with a combination of

X-rays and gamma rays, he penetrated

the thousands of years old corrosion,

which invents something that surpasses his skills and

guesses.

Inside he discovered over 30

gears,

some of them made of flat bronze sheet,

others with up to 65 teeth

Nobody expected anything complex.

Since then, new research has further advanced our

understanding of the ancient mechanism.

An obstacle on the way to a better

understanding was the extensive extent of

corrosion.

This difficulty was only overcome in

2005 with a technique called X-

ray tomography.

The 3D tomograph has one significantly

higher resolution than anything that

was available to price in the 70s

filmography means breaking the object down into

layers to

reveal hidden structures

it turns out that price

had only scratched the surface

we now know that the mechanism is

made of 37 or 38

The scans show a machine that

is far more complex than Preis imagined.

Over the last ten years,

computer analysis has

brought to light hidden

characters that no

human eye has seen in 2,000 years

because they are not only

guessed at The whole thing

worked

Experts are even able to

decipher parts of an instruction manual

that explains the mechanism Price was

right So

essentially the device shows the

positions of the celestial bodies,

the five planets plus the sun and moon,

the five planets known at the time throughout the entire year

Mercury Venus Mars Jupiter and Saturn

According to experts, this is what the ancient mechanism originally

looked like.

It can predict the positions of the Sun, Moon

and planets over the years. It was not until

1348 that a

comparable mechanism was invented again

and in comparison it is hardly more

than one Toy

This one is not only the first

known analog computer in the world it

is also extraordinarily precise

how could its inventors

achieve such precision 2000 years ago

the object is originally housed in

a wooden case the size of a

flat shoebox the mechanism

inside controls complicated

combinations of gear sets including

a crown wheel that moves the system at a 90°

angle, a technology that would only

appear again in the late Middle Ages 1400 years later. At

the front there is a dial for

the 365 days of the year.

The hands can be moved using a rotary knob.

They represent the different

celestial bodies and show where they will be

on each day of the year

but also over several years because

the outer planets take longer than

a year to complete their orbit.

There are separate hands for the sun

Mars Venus Jupiter Mercury Saturn and the

moon on

each dial serves a specific

purpose, for example to count down

to the next Olympic Games

or to show which

zodiac sign the sun is in.

Tables show annual events such as

the

summer - throughout the year,

for example, the orbit of the moon is

predicted and with great

accuracy

the scans At the end of the

moon pointer, a tiny rotating

moon appears. It is assumed that it

was painted black and half white.

The small ball represented the Monday. It

rotated and thus depicted the

different phases of the moon. The researchers

also noticed that the

speed of the moon pointer changed as it moved

the revolution changes but that's not a

mistake it's brilliant

to accelerate and sometimes slow down

that's because its orbit

is not circular the

moon is closer to the earth it seems to

be faster than when it's further

away it's

incredibly difficult to depict something like that with gears

but the mechanism

works

the different speeds

of the moon gear are created with two slightly

offset gears the

drive wheel has a pin that

sits in a slot on the moon gear it

rotates faster when the

pin is at one of the two ends

and slower when it slides inwards

The precision with which this was done

is extraordinary. It

has now turned out that

the antiquid mechanism

can even predict solar eclipses

[music]

it is so complex it bundles the entire

knowledge of Greek astronomy in

this small box that is simply

breathtaking

[music]

the entire universe in a box

nothing similar will be developed for the next 1,400 years the

inventor must be a genius so who

is it

one of the first from that era to be

considered for such an achievement

is Archimedes

[music]

not only knew an incredible amount about

physics the world and the

celestial bodies he was also an inventor

[music]

with levers and trains he builds delicate

devices such as the world's first odometer

and he invents the Archimedean

screw a water pump that is still used today

[music]

asked who invented this incredible object

could he was the

obvious candidate who else could have brought together so

many different aspects of

Greek science

[music]

the mechanism itself also contains

clues the inscriptions are written in a

subspecies of Greek

that is only spoken in a few places

including Archimedes' home island of

Sicily

So this is another invention of

Archimedes there is a problem with

this theory the inventor of the

ancient delivery mechanism already knows

that the speed of the moon

seems to vary

the first and well-known astronomer who knew about the

supposedly different

speeds of the moon was

the parchima around 170 BC

At this point Archimedes has

already been dead for more than 40 years

[music] so if it is

n't the great Archimedes who

then

the inscription on one of the

dials gives a possible

clue

the mechanism informs about the

dates of the Olympic Games that is

not surprising

but he is dedicated also less well-known

events such as the alia

the alia are regional games that

took place on Rhodes in ancient times is

a clear argument for an origin

from Rhodes made in Word the island was

also famous for its metalworking

a red one from Rhodes was a huge

bronze statue that marked the entrance to the

mechanism that ran into the harbor and its creator from

the island of Rhodes. The next candidate would be

the man who discovered the

different speeds of the

moon. Archos

lived and worked at the right time

around 170 BC and in the right

place, Rhodes. The mechanism was probably

developed there. There is

a lot that points to eposition However, he died

60 years before

the ship sank,

so the mechanism would have been relatively

old,

but there is another

candidate,

he lived a few years later, which also

requires

the astronomer Poseidonius.

One day Poseidonius received a visit from

the Roman writer

Ciceral in his Diary reports

that Poseidonius told him about a device

that he had constructed to

represent the movement of the planets

Archimedes

or Poseidonios we

may never know whoever is

behind it is clearly a genius

because he depicts the universe as clockwork

that is one Type of thinking that

actually only came into fashion with Newton and the

age of mechanics, the

idea that the universe

can be understood as a kind of primordial system.

Apparently, someone in ancient

Greece already suspected that

nature worked in this way

without the accidental discovery of the sponge divers

100 years ago would this secret

perhaps still lie dormant at the bottom of the

Aegean Sea

[music]

at the National Museum of American history

in Washington DC there is a

World War II bomb tip on display

but this is no ordinary bomb

it has small windows for your little

pilots

the goal of this technology Was it

to guide a 1,000 pound bomb

with a pigeon

using digital imaging technology

we can now show it in all its

glory

this is in some ways the pigeon bomb is

one of the smarter bombs to have been

developed measuring

60cm long and

50cm wide Is it just big enough to

transport three tiny kamikaze pilots?

Could the bizarre device actually

work? Who came up with it

and why on earth do you need a

bomb controlled by pigeons?

The history of

aerial bombing is above all a

history of bombs If the target

expires

at sea, the result is even

worse.

You try to drop a large piece of metal on

a moving, relatively small

object.

During the Second World War, it is

estimated that only one percent of

ships dropped bombs land a

hit.

Improved strategies are being worked on feverishly.

There are various options. One

is out

Dropping airplanes is another thing,

using some kind of guidance system, something that makes the

stupid bombs at least a little

more intelligent

than an alternative to bombs that are simply

dropped. Both sides are developing glide

bombs.

A gliding bomb is easier to

control than a conventional

bomb that you just drop and leave on the go

still have to make adjustments

and increase the aiming accuracy

the Germans the Germans celebrated

successes with the first glide bomb the

fritz-x

[music]

however the fritz-x had a

weakness it was radio controlled the

villain had two potential problems firstly

the dropping of the plane had to

fly with it so to speak In order to be

able to control it, it brought danger to the aircraft and

its crews.

The Allies became better and

better as the war progressed.

The perfect glide bomb would not only have to be

insensitive to such disruptive maneuvers,

it would also have to fly autonomously and be

able to hit its target without further control.

So how do you build one? Guided bomb

without radio control is very simple,

the control is in the bomb and therefore

independent of a radio signal, which is why

the pigeon bomb was one of all the animals

in the world. Why pigeons, of all things, have been

useful to people for thousands of years to send messages,

they can navigate very well and

find their way back Back home

the ancient Egyptians used them the

ancient Greeks used them

they trusted pigeons even to

transmit the results of the

Olympic players in

modern times pigeons also became

important in warfare during the

First World War half a

million pigeons were used to send messages

Pigeon even became a hero she

saved a US battalion and was

called cher ami

she delivered a message even though

she was seriously injured and

had lost an eye she even received a

war medal for her heroic

actions

[music]

Pigeons also played

a role in World War II The Allies

dropped carrier pigeons with small maps

over German-occupied areas.

Resistance fighters used them to

write down information on the maps

and attach them back to the pigeons,

which then flew back home.

[Music]

Pigeons have another

property that is essential for bomb control -

birds generally much smarter

than they are given credit for, terms like

sparrows are therefore unfair and among

birds pigeons are among the smartest

[music]

it seems as if pigeons are

not so unsuitable as pilots, the big

question remains how on earth do you teach

them one Bomb to Fly

Appearance of the psychologist BF Scanner

[music]

was one of the fathers of modern

psychology. In the USA he was one of the

advocates of behaviorism, which studies the

behavior of people and animals.

He tried to understand what

drives thinking creatures and how they

react to stimuli

[Music]

the idea that a certain stimulus

causes a reaction goes back to Pavlo's

famous experiments with dogs

who found that dogs

produce saliva when shown food

[Music]

were particularly interested in simple

reactions to external stimuli and

physical stimulation

and consciousness

[ Music]

developed an apparatus to

condition animals, the so-called skinner box.

An animal was placed in it and received

a certain stimulus.

If it showed the desired reaction,

it received a reward, for example

food.

Intelligent animals like pigeons find

out more quickly what is expected of them and

they remember it the behavior

that was rewarded and reproducing it

again and again

in initial tests, the pigeons performed

even better than expected,

were able to teach some pretty complicated things, things that birds do

n't normally do, for example,

playing table tennis

[music]

Encouraged by the results,

Skinner turns to The government

applied for funds to develop

a pigeon bomb

[music]

presented the US military with an idea

that on the surface

seems completely absurd,

but you have to know that

crazy ideas and experiments were not uncommon during the Second World War -

the idea was by no means one of the

craziest there was Bats

carrying napalm or my personal

favorite dogs trained by the Russians

with anti-tank bombs

[music]

they were supposed to crawl under German tanks

and detonate their bombs there

was just one small catch

the dogs were trained on Russian tanks

as soon as they were let loose

they cook straight under the Russian

tanks the whole thing didn't

really go according to plan

as bomb carriers, animals have a

pretty bad track record

[music]

how it exactly opposes its concept

for well bombs

to attach a pressure-tight tip to the front of a glide bomb in which

the pigeon should be housed

[ Music]

At the front there is a small screen

on which an image of the target

is projected

[Music]

the pigeon is trained to peck at the

picture,

the guidance system reacts accordingly and

sets course for the target

in order to minimize the error rate,

each bomb is supposed to be piloted by three pigeons

All three pigeons are controlled in parallel. The

majority determines the bomb's trajectory

exactly. It is on the right track. The

principle is still used today in

the navigation software of many aircraft.

There are three independent systems. They

work together according to the majority principle

and control the aircraft in this way If

one of the systems is

wrong, the plane is not in

danger.

Understandably, the idea of ​​having a

high-explosive bomb

controlled by three pigeons doesn't sit well with the US military,

but Skinner is firmly convinced

that it can work,

so in 1943 Skinner received $25,000 for it

his research at this time a

princely sun

gains insight into the construction of the glide

bomb known as Pelican the

experiment receives the perfect

code name Project Pigeon

as planned the image is projected from a

lens onto a tilting screen

which detects the

touches through the beak is

tested with realistic ones Pictures

and the results are amazing

when someone describes the pigeon bomb to you

but the pictures of the pigeons with

the picture of the ship make it clear that it

actually works

but as far as we know the

pigeon bomb never goes off

what was the problem

[music]

in 1944 Skinner demonstrated to one Team

of scientists his solution everything

fits here shows a film has his

pigeon pilots ready a model of the

capsule and it works he has

invented an invulnerable control system

provided that

it still fails to convince the

skeptical scientists

in fact the

meeting ended with someone

taking Skinner aside and Suggested him

to go out for a drink, which the child rightly values

as a bad sign.

Skinner has no idea that a

competing project has long been

working on another solution. The

solution worked from a technical

point of view, but at the same time,

research was being carried out on another solution, a

radar guidance system that also works,

and was finally awarded the contract

2,600 such so-called

bat bombs were produced and

one thing is clear: with the radar-controlled

system there was significantly

less bird dirt

[music]

is pigeon warfare so at the

end of

2019 a previously top secret

CIA report will be published containing

details of an operation called Project

Takana from the 1970s In years

the greatest successes were achieved with pigeons

[music]

the idea was to attach tiny cameras to pigeons

and release them in the Soviet Union.

There you should

take photos in flight with enough pigeons

so the assumption would be that pictures of

interesting things would come out of it,

the plan envisages that to secretly

smuggle pigeons into Moscow and let them swarm there

[music]

the pigeons were to be

released near facilities in

which the Americans were interested,

they were to take pictures and

return to a specific location or where

film was to be developed, the

first The goal was one of the safest

locations in the entire Soviet Union

[Music]

but we don't know whether the

project was ever carried out.

These pigeons were probably like the

bomb pilots before them. They were

not allowed to demonstrate their talent, not an

easy fate. Pigeon in

military service,

a cup in the British Museum in London

is one of the strangest artifacts of

Roman antiquity. It is 1,700 years old

and appears decorative but rather

inconspicuous.

A careful reconstruction using

imaging techniques reveals its

secret. It is

approximately 16 cm high and delicately

crafted.

It changes color. It

draws that no optical

illusion, the color really changes

from red to green if you don't

move it,

how does something like that work

and what exactly is this object about

[music]

perhaps

from the fourth century

AD, i.e. from the late Roman period,

glass technology was already there at that time

quite well developed and became more and more

complex

mythical figures seem to float, exceptions

glass goblet Archaeologists

speak of a diatrite glass

the goblet is one of the best-

preserved goblet glasses of antiquity

even back in the fourth century

it was a rarity

microscopic examination shows

that the The cup and its floating

cage are made from a single piece of glass,

a really brittle and fragile

material, a little too delicate,

tiny tools were used to

carefully remove excess parts,

the material was essentially

undercut so that there were spaces between the

figures and the glass

[music]

one slip or one sneeze and

you would have had to melt the whole thing down

and start over

but it's the glass itself that

is so spectacular

[music]

the remarkable thing about it is that it

changes color I've never seen anything like that

[music]

ever exist In Roman times, it was

n't actually a goblet that

changed color, an extreme rarity,

people must have been thrilled

[music]

of course a glass like that is a real

prestige object

[music]

that's the stuff you could

really brag about, they have a fancy

house built to throw cool parties and

the highlight of the evening is this

chalice

[music]

the technical term is the poetic

glass which means two-colored

for centuries its

nature remains a mystery the

examination and the microscope reveals

nothing

changeable it is completely ordinary

Roman glass

[music]

how can it a 1,700-year-old

drinking vessel changes color For a long time,

research has been looking for an explanation

[Music]

In 1990, scientists used an

electron microscope to find out

what was inside the glass. Be careful,

they discovered tiny particles of gold,

silver and copper. They practically float in the

glass particles.

These particles explain the

amazing color changes of the

glass

are quantum effects

that take place on a subatomic level

the effect works because white

light consists of many colors

it consists of all the colors of the

rainbow red orange green into the blue

violet

the smallest particles of light are called

photons with their respective ones The

amount of energy determines the

different colors of the light. The

miracle happens when photons

penetrate the glass and hit the metallic

nanoparticles.

The large ones are

surrounded by a cloud of electrons. When

the photon hits the cloud, it is

absorbed and creates a kind of

vibration, something like a jumper on

a trampoline

gives way a wave runs around it and

when it rebounds

the photon is thrown back in the direction it came from

[music]

the scientists find that

the size of the nanoparticles in the glass

ensures that only green photons

bounce back if you are very

careful you create particles of

just the right size they

scatter the green light lets the

other colors through and creates this

beautiful effect

the light reflected from the cup

appears green to us

the rest of the light goes straight through

the cup white light minus green it

gives a fluffy red

falls So light through the glass sees it

red,

the metals had to

become very fine, much

finer as part of

this was then distributed evenly in the glass in a very

specific ratio,

a tiny amount of metal creates

the effect

[music]

on a million particles If you take about

300 parts of silver and about 40 parts of gold

together, it would still be a

particle that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

Scientists get into the quantum effect

that causes the color change.

Surface plasmons resonance. This is

nanotechnology,

the manipulation of matter on an

atomic or near atomic level

It's pretty safe to say

that the Romans didn't understand these quantum effects

but obviously someone knew that

you had to add certain metals in a

certain amount to

achieve the amazing color effect

with its extraordinary quantum

glass, the lekoopus cup is one of the

most spectacular tolerable ever

made

but for whom actually

must have been a wealthy high-ranking

person perhaps even

someone in the imperial family

the cup probably dates back to the

early fourth century AD

the Roman Empire was then divided between two

feuding emperors

Constantine and License

reigns intragia in the eastern part of the

empire

The chalice shows the mythical

tragic king lycor cast in battle with

the wine god Dionysus

[music]

defeated by Dionysus also known as the Roman god Bacchus.

It could also be symbolic for Lizenius,

the Roman emperor who moved to

Thrace. He was then ruled by Emperor

Constantine

Western Roman Empire defeated perhaps

the whole thing is symbolic

perhaps the chalice depicts Licinius'

defeat against Constantine

[music]

if it was made to celebrate his victory

Emperor

Constantine could even have drunk from the chalice,

whoever it belonged to, that this

fragile ancient gem was the The

following almost 2000 years

have survived bordering on a miracle

[music]

today, understanding the processes

in the cup can help in the development of new

technologies

inspired by the color-sensitive

nanoparticles in the coconut cup,

scientists at the

University of Illinois developed

highly sensitive sensors

nanoparticles from the glass environment

Instead of putting them in water,

such a sensor can show changes in the

concentration of various substances.

Thanks to this technology,

body fluids can be better

examined in medicine and it is even possible to

detect bombs by detecting the

presence of certain chemicals

[Music]

sometimes they help us Secrets of the

ancient world even help to unlock the secrets

of the future