by Ira Polans

The October meeting is on the 13th at 7:30 PM via Zoom (See Using Zoom below for details). This meeting is open to AAAP members, UACNJ, and the general public. Due to the number of possible attendees we will re-institute the Waiting Room. This means when you login into Zoom you will not be taken to the meeting.

We are planning to make use of chat for the Q&A session. To address background noise issues, we are going to follow the rules in the table below regarding audio. If the background noise gets to loud during Q&A or the Business Meeting we will Mute All.

Only the Business part of the meeting will be locked.

Featured Speaker: Dr. Alexander R. Jones of NYU will give a talk on The Antikythera Mechanism and Ancient Greek Astronomy. The Antikythera Mechanism was a complex geared “tabletop” instrument that was lost in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Antikythera about 60 BC, and recovered in corroded fragments in 1901. It was recognized almost at once as having something to do with astronomy. After three major campaigns of research since 1958, we now know a great deal about its functions and can describe it as a device for displaying coordinated cycles of time and astronomical phenomena simulated at an accelerated rate of time. This talk will focus on how the Mechanism fits within and expands what we know about ancient Greek astronomy.

Using Zoom: While we are, social distancing the AAAP Board has chosen to use Zoom for our meetings, based our belief that many members have already have used Zoom and its ease of learning. One of its great features is you can choose whether you want to install the software on your computer or use it within your browser.

How to Join the October Meeting: For the meeting, we are going to follow a simple two-step process:

1. Please make sure you have Zoom installed on your computer. You do not need a Zoom account or need to create one to join the meeting. Nor are you required to use a webcam.
2. Please visit our website for the link to the meeting

NOTE: We plan to open the meeting site 30 minutes to the 7:30 start time. This way you won’t have to rush to join the meeting. A maximum of 100 attendees can join the meeting.

More Information: The Zoom site has many training videos most are for people who are hosting a meeting. If you’re unsure how Zoom works you might want to view the videos on how to join a meeting or how to check your computer’s audio and video before the meeting.