Astronomy and mechanics have long been inextricably linked, working together to help humankind explore and understand the universe. Although today we take for granted the use of advanced tools to observe the sky, the roots of this practice trace back to antiquity, when mechanics began to develop as an independent discipline. Despite its importance, in ancient Greece, mechanics was considered a humble field, unfit for great scientists. Nevertheless, scholars such as ArchimedesArchimedes are said to have designed mechanical devices—CiceroMarcus Tullius Cicero mentions a sphere that reproduced the motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets—which may have served not only as demonstrations of celestial mechanics but perhaps also, in some measure, as aids to astronomical observation.