Grab an astrolabe. (Mo Costandi/Creative Commons)

Yes, the notion of Vedic nuclear weapons decimating ancient Indian cities is a more than a bit far-fetched. Yet from the mysterious Antikythera mechanism to Archimedes’ death ray, we’re continually fascinated by the idea of ancient advanced technology.

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I look at what we really know about the technology of the ancients. In what ways was mathematics a post-apocalyptic science for Medieval Europe and how did the Islamic development of the Astrolabe lead to the Age of Discovery?

And yes, we’ll discuss ancient robots.

As promised, you’ll find a photo of some astrolabes to the right there, like an ancient iPhone capable of telling time, calculating distances, determining prayer times, measuring building heights, surveying, providing altitude data, reading your horoscope, providing planetary coordinates and noting both longitude and latitude. To get a better idea of how they work, Tom Wujec demos a 13th-century astrolabe in this TED Talk:

So there you have it! You can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks App!

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