X-rays reveal Archimedes secrets

[DoYouEverWonder]

2 August 2006

A series of hidden texts written by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being revealed by US scientists.

Until now, the pages have remained obscured by paintings and texts laid down on top of the original writings.

Using a non-destructive technique known as X-ray fluorescence, the researchers are able to peer through these later additions to read the underlying text.

The goatskin parchment records key details of Archimedes' work, considered the foundation of modern mathematics.

The writings include the only Greek version of On Floating Bodies known to exist, and the only surviving ancient copies of The Method of Mechanical Theorems and the Stomachion.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5235894.stm

[bbinacan]

1. This is one case where recycling

wasn't such a good thing.;)

Thanks for the link.

[SteveG]

5. Actually it was a good thing

The paintings actually preserved the writing. It is likely that if they had not been recycled into paintings, the documents would not have been passed down from generation to generation.

[Exultant Democracy]

2. What a treasure! n/t

[lovuian]

23. This is a treasure...

I'm excited this was brilliant man...

[Ezlivin]

3. Give me a lever and I shall move the world

As soon as the Bushites hear that they'll want to spent billions of dollars developing the ultimate lever of mass destruction.

[Cronus Protagonist]

4. I believe you would also need a stable fulcrum

Sorry, I have to nit pick. I'm feeling a bit ignored...

:)



Educate Your Local Freepers!
Flaunt Your Opinions With Buttons, Stickers and Magnets from BrainButtons.com
>

[Ezlivin]

6. You made Archimedes smile

Yes, there is the small problem of a fulcrum.

The weapons budget should also include a fulcrum. At an additional cost, naturally.

:)

[DemoTex]

9. Here's the Fulcrum Bu$h's lever won't touch.

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 Fulcrum

[KansDem]

20. Hey, I like what they did with the flag on the tail!

Instead of the usual rectangle, the Russian flag appears as a trapezoid to fit the shape of the tail.

Very stylish!

[saigon68]

26. Pretty good weapon

Need a lot of training and control to work well though

[Massacure]

27. Isn't that pretty much the reason the US developed the F-22 Raptor?

[Davis_X_Machina]

7. The Archimedes Palimpsest...

....has its own website.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. I was reading a story...

about how a recent translation revealed that Archimedes had a problem and he was developing calculus in order to solve it. He didn't make it, of course, how do you develop calculus when you haven't got algebra? He saw a need for it though, and was trying to wrap his brain around it.

I've been told by a classical scholar that there are a large number of untranslated mathematical texts because mathematicians often don't know ancient Greek and Latin, and classical scholars don't understand a lot of mathematics.

[RoyGBiv]

10. Ayup ...

I know a mathematician who is also a self-trained historian who has lately decided to try to learn some of these ancient languages for this very reason.

[Recursion]

14. He essentially had algebra

Solutions to diophantine equations in general were known; what he really lacked was a theory of real numbers. The notation was cumbersome, but the essence of discrete and rational algebra was there.

You're exactly right about the state of scholarship, too: scholars of classical mathematics are rare, and the field had not progressed very much from the 1950s until very recently. There are also some big cultural gaps; we have very modern conceptions of number that are hard to let go of when we read the Greeks and early Arabs and Persians.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

24. There was a story about this a year or so ago

Some scientists were looking at some ancient documents (Greek, I think -- maybe Latin) and discovered that one section had been untranslatable at the time of its finding back in the 1300's. The monks who translated it had merely elided the entire section as it didn't make sense and all the future translations/copies followed the first monastic translations.

Anyway, recently, modern scientists were rechecking the elided section of the original document and realized that the section that was elided basically explained Newtonian calculus -- and it was written circa 200BC to 100 AD, IIRC.

(I'm going to relook for that story. I'll post a link if I find it.)

[cliss]

11. That is so cool.

These are my favorite posts: strange and usual happenings in the world of science.

Thanks for posting, DYEW.:smoke:

[Carla in Ca]

12. We just watched a show about this

a few weeks ago on the History Channel. What a shame so much written text was lost in the fire(s) at the library at Alexandria.

Absolutely fascinating!

[Peace Patriot]

13. The last mathematician in that incredible series of Greek/Phoenician

geniuses was Hypatia; she was also the last head of the Alexandria Library, skinned alive by the Bushites of the 5th century (who went on to create Roman Catholic Bushism at the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon*), and who had begun sacking and burning the Library in the late-300s AD, probably looking for the Gnostic Gospels (the real gospels). She was known to have been working on quadratic equations and conic sections, and was the most famous and beloved teacher of the late Roman Empire--but all of her works were burned. Nothing remains. --that we know of. One can always hope, I guess, that those who hid the Gnostic Gospels in sealed jars in the desert outside Alexandria concealed other things as well.

--------------------

*(It's interesting that one of the funders of electronic voting--featuring TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming, and virtually no audit/recount controls--rightwing billionaire, Howard Ahmanson (the initial funder of ES&S, brethren to Diebold), ALSO gave one million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation, which touts the death penalty for homosexuals (among other things). I don't know if they take their name from the murderers, thieves and inquisitionists of the 5th century, but it would certainly be fitting.)

[newspeak]

22. Yes, Hypatia

didn't she invent the first sextant? I swear humans take one step forward and ten steps back--such ignorance-it truly was the "DARK AGES." Anyone ever wonder what ancient texts are hidden in the Vatican?

[happyslug]

30. Some more on Hypatia and the Great Library

Some first hand accounts about her (These are VERY limited for records prior to the 1300s are rare even from Classical Rome and Greece let alone the period of Decline):
http://www.cosmopolis.com/alexandria/hypatia-bio-suda.html
http://www.cosmopolis.com/alexandria/hypatia-bio-socrates.html

Comment on Primary Sources and other primary sources:
http://www.polyamory.org/~howard/Hypatia/primary-sources.html

Some comments of the "Destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria":
http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria

Also some historical background. The Emperor Julian (360-363) had gather the Roman Army and the Roman Treasury to Invade what is now Iraq. Julian's invasion is one of numerous failed attempts to Conquer Iraq since Emperor Septimius Severus (193-211 A.D.) had looted Ctesiphon, its Capital in 198 AD (and no Roman Emperor would be Successful till Heraclius (610-641 A.D.) who then abandoned it like Hadrian had done in 117 AD as to far for Rome to Rule).

Anyway, Julian launched his Great Expedition but he was NOT fighting the dieing Parthian Empire of Severus's time, but the New Persian Empire at the Height of its Power. The Persian defeated his Army by wearing it down and forcing him to retreat (Sounds like today's Iraq). Anyway Julian died in Combat and his Successor to save the army exchanged some Roman held lands to Persia in exchanged for free passage back to Roman Territory AND provisions for that trip.

Now the problem this treaty of 363 AD just produced an unstable border between Roman Syria and Persian Iraq. This force the Romans to spend a huge amount of money building up their forces (The Emperor Valentian seems to be less Christian and more where he could get funding in in persecution of Pagans and other religions minorities). Then the Goths revolted in 378 AD and in the subsequent battle of Adrianople destroyed the Roman Army in the East. In 382 Emperor Theodosius I (379-395 A.D.) signed a peace treaty with the Goths, which for the first time since 212 AD (when Roman Citizenship was given to ALL people living within the Empire) permitted non-Roman Citizens into the Empire. To defeat the Goths, Theodosius I hired Germans to fight in the Roman Army (Transferring some, but not all of them to Egypt to relieve Roman Troops).

The significance of the Treaty of 382 was the Goths kept they Ethic identity, they were the Gothic Tribe that lived within the Empire. Rome was to weak to drive them out thus had to accept their presence. Especially since Rome went into Civil War for the next 15 years. First between Theodosius I and his fellow Catholic Magnus Maximus (383-388 A.D.) and the Arian Valentinian II (375-92 A.D.). Theordosius allied himself with Valentianian II against Maximus, defeated Maximus and made Valentianian II his co-emperor in the West (with Theodosius Ruling the east part of the Empire). When Valentianian II died in 392 he was succeeded by Flavius Eugenius (392-394). Flavius Eugenius had the support of the Roman Senate but Theodosius defeated quickly for due to the Gothic Invasion and Civil war the army in the West had become mostly German, while it remained Roman in the East. These trends continued after Theodosius death in 395 AD. Theodosius was the last Emperor of both the Western and Eastern Empire, but even he could not hold it together. Within 15 years Rome would be sacked by the Goths and the Western Empire would be using only German Troops. In the East the Empire became more and more Greek and Egyptian in nature (and would become divided between these two languages in the form of the monophysite Controversy, the Egyptians were Monophysites the Greeks were Orthodox).

Thus the Empire was under great stress the time period of the murder of Hypatia. This was a time period were anybody who did not support the Emperor could be called a Traitor and the destruction of Pagan Temples was more tied in with the Emperor's need for Gold than Religion.

List of Roman Emperors:
http://www.roman-emperors.org/

[The Stranger]

25. Any links or references to learn more?

Thanks.

[Recursion]

15. Palimpset

Palimpset, IIRC, is the decryption key for the first part of the Kryptos sculpture in Langley. I wonder if there's a meaning there...

[RedEarth]

16. Interesting.......thanks for posting

[dipsydoodle]

17. There were further examples

shown here in a TV documentary concerning infra red multi level imaging techniques. Egyptian mummies were wrapped in what we would consider to be waste paper written on and then discarded. Difference was that the Egyptians used papyrus which once written on in a horizontal plane was often re-used by painting over the writing and then rotating the papyrus 90 degrees for the new writing. Your specialists working in conjuction with the British Museum have got back to the original layer of writing which is revealing all manner of stuff.

[Richard Steele]

28. They actually found an example of Cleopatra's signature that way.

It was on some everyday paperwork which had been recycled
and used in a paper-maché sarcophagus, IIRC.

[Felix Mala]

18. In the Dark Ages, a monk bleached out the manuscript and wrote

a prayer book over it. At some point in the near future, I expect the same things will happen with what we know about biology, earth and space. The far-right religious dictators will obliterate what we know of the universe and hide it away for as many centuries as they are able.

>
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Sorry, feeling a little paranoid today.

[leftofthedial]

19. mathematics is just a theory

the intelligent designer created everything, so why do you need mathematics?

the bible doesn't mention mathematics. Archimedes was either a heathen or a devil idol worshiper.

this is just more secular-humanist garbage.

those documents should be destroyed.

and they would be in Kansas or Texas.

[Hoping4Change]

21. As civilization is being destroyed post haste, a little piece is found.

Nice to read about this. Thanks for posting.

[philly_bob]

29. Brain food in a time of hunger

Thanks DYEW for posting, and others for recommending. I love reading about the world of immortal ideas here in an environment which tends to the fast-breaking and partisan.

I wonder whether our opposite numbers on the Free Republic can stop and say Wow! over such things.

And I wonder how close Archimedes came to Einstein's Brownian Motion observations.