Science And Technology In Homeric Epics

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In the Homeric Epics, important references to specific autonomous systems and mechanisms of very advanced technology, such as automata and artificial intelligence, as well as to almost modern methods of design and production are included. Even if those features of Homeric science were just poetic concepts (which on many occasions does not explain the astonishing details of design and manufacture, like the ones included in the present volume), they seem to prove that these achievements were well within human capability. In addition, the substantial development of machine theory during the early post-Homeric age shows that the Homeric descriptions were a kind of prophetic conception of these machines, and scientific research must be a quest for the fundamental principles of knowledge available during the Late Bronze Age and the dawn of the Iron Age. Such investigations must of necessity be strongly interdisciplinary and also proceed continuously in time, since, as science progresses, new elements of knowledge are discovered in the Homeric Epics, amenable to scientific analysis.This book brings together papers presented at the international symposium Science and Technology in Homeric Epics, which took place at Ancient Olympia in 2006. It includes a total of 41 contributions, mostly original research papers, covering diverse fields of science and technology, in the modern sense of these words.

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Science and Technology in Homeric Epics HISTORY OF MECHANISM AND MACHINE SCIENCE Volume 6 Series Editor MARCO CECCARELLI Aims and Scope of the Series This book series aims to establish a well defined forum for Monographs and Proceedings on the History of Mechanism and Machine Science (MMS). The series publishes works that give an overview of the historical developments, from the earliest times up to and including the recent past, of MMS in all its technical aspects. This technical approach is an essential characteristic of the series. By discussing technical details and formulations and even reformulating those in terms of modern formalisms the possibility is created not only to track the historical technical developments but also to use past experiences in technical teaching and research today. In order to do so, the emphasis must be on technical aspects rather than a purely historical focus, although the latter has its place too. Furthermore, the series will consider the republication of out-of-print older works with English translation and comments. The book series is intended to collect technical views on historical developments of the broad field of MMS in a unique frame that can be seen in its totality as an Encyclopaedia of the History of MMS but with the additional purpose of archiving and teaching the History of MMS. Therefore the book series is intended not only for researchers of the History of Engineering but also for professionals and students who are interested in obtaining a clear perspective of the past for their future technical works. The books will be written in general by engineers but not only for engineers. Prospective authors and editors can contact the series editor, Professor M. Ceccarelli, about future publications within the series at: LARM: Laboratory of Robotics and Mechatronics DiMSAT – University of Cassino Via Di Biasio 43, 03043 Cassino (Fr) Italy E-mail: [email protected] For other titles published in this series, go to www.springer.com/series/7481 S.A. Paipetis Editor Science and Technology in Homeric Epics S.A. Paipetis Department of Mechanical Engineering & Aeronautics University of Patras Patras Greece Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of the articles and figures which have been reproduced f