Q 01/05

The Antikythera mechanism could predict which astronomical events decades in advance?

A) Eclipses

B) Supernovae

C) Meteor showers

D) Aurorae

Answer · why

A) Eclipses

It also modelled the Moon's irregular orbit, speeding up at perigee, a motion studied by Hipparchus of Rhodes in the same century.

Q 02/05

How many teeth did the largest gear of that ancient Greek device originally carry?

A) 223

B) 365

C) 512

D) 720

Answer · why

A) 223

That count matches the Saros eclipse cycle of 223 lunar months, which is how the machine could forecast eclipses at all.

Q 03/05

Machinery as complex as the Antikythera mechanism did not reappear until which century in western Europe?

A) The 9th

B) The 14th

C) The 17th

D) The 19th

Answer · why

B) The 14th

The device sat unnoticed in an Athens museum for two years after being raised, looking like nothing more than a lump of corroded bronze.

Q 04/05

Besides the heavens, what four-year cycle did the Antikythera device track?

A) A tax census

B) Athletic games

C) Nile floods

D) Ship-building seasons

Answer · why

B) Athletic games

Conservation has since broken the single retrieved lump into 82 separate fragments, only four of which contain gears.

Q 05/05

Radiocarbon dating placed the vellum of the Voynich manuscript in which period?

A) The early 12th century

B) The early 15th century

C) The late 16th century

D) The early 18th century

Answer · why

B) The early 15th century

Multispectral analysis also showed the pages had never been written on before, ruling out a reused palimpsest.