The starting point for this article – and it’s an interesting place to start – is the Antikythera Mechanism. But what the article is mainly about is rediscovering lost threads of knowledge in archives and documents that we already possess, and connecting them – something that deep learning will increasingly help with. The article doesn’t mention quantum computing, but the kind of massive-scale modelling that quantum computers will be capable of could be ideal for this kind of project.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/12/the-search-for-lost-knowledge/506879/