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Published online 2 April 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.730
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Medieval calculator up for grabs
UK museum seeks cash to keep a rare astrolabe in public hands.
The fate of a fourteenth-century pocket calculator is hanging in the balance between museum ownership and private sale.
The device is a brass astrolabe quadrant that opens a new window on the mathematical and astronomical literacy of the Middle Ages, experts say.
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This has to stay in the public domain. Patrick Beauchamp