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Archimedes' Lost Words Yield To RIT Scientists
cCranium writes: "Scientists at Rochester University have apparently restored the only known copy of Archimedes' original text, describing his theory of floatation of bodies."
From the article: "They're able to do this because every mark the Greek mathematician made on the vellum parchment, a writing surface made from animal skin, left a residue that can be uncovered even a millennium later." Now if you had some of Archimedes' writings around the house, would you erase them so you could resuse the paper?! Priorities sure change, I guess. [Updated 12 July 3:44GMT by timothy] As many people have pointed out, the submission's phrasing is incorrect; Rochester University is a different school. The ongoing work on Archimede's manuscript is being done at Rochester Institute of Technology, as per the headline. [Updated 12 July 17:01 GMT by timothy] Sigh. As even more people have pointed out, that's "University of Rochester," not "Rochester University." All set? :)
Many ancient Greek writings would be lost to history if not for Arab scholars. Because there were no printing presses a few thousand years ago, maintaining the writings of Hippocrates, Archimedes, and other ancient Greeks required that their texts be rewritten by hand from time to time. Once the Greek civilization began it's decline there simply wasn't anyone with the time, inclination, or resources to devote to the maintenance of these great texts. Luckily for us today many of these texts were taken to the Middle East, where Arab scholars recognized their lasting value and maintained them for centuries.
By the time historical interest in ancient Greece began to resurface (a few hundred years ago), the Arab copies were the only sizeable collection of ancient Greek literature left in existence. Because of that, practically all of the Greek literature we read today has gone through several langage translations which can, unfortunately, distort the original meaning of the texts(eg. Greek>Arab>Latin>English).
Finding an original Greek text (or Greek language copy) is a GREAT find for historians because it will allow us to examine the writings without worrying about misinterpretations and other unintentional distortions.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
Source for text
Other links of interest.....
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My point was that other sources exist, I know the arabic scholars created a vast wealth of knowledge, but translations from the greek were made at much later dates than that which we base our work on.
HTH
Working for the (other) man
Thank goodness for permenent markers, eh?
Jaeger
http://334.se2600.org
http://jump.to/jaeger
...the math demonstrated "the roots of the gravitational theory and modern calculus."
Newton's work on gravitational theory, although started on his own, was fueled by letters from Hooke (the spring man). Acording to a lecture givin by an expert on Newtons life, Hooke was working on gravitational theory, trying to solve Keplers laws, by use of geometry and was hitting some problems and sent some letters to Newton. Newton at the time was only considered the greatest geometrist around (he hadn't published calculus yet), Hooke was asking for some help with his math. Apparently Newton sent back a letter with a few calculations of his own on gravitational theory, almost mocking Hookes attempts to create a theory of gravity. Hooke continued to ask for help, sending more letters with more of his work, and apparently Newton used some of his ideas. If Hooke had been a better mathematician, it might have been Hookes theory of gravity.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Well if I was a Greek monk and my choices were hang on to an old Math book or write a prayer book, I'm sure my priority would be the prayer book
It's more likely that the text was wiped because writings by Archimedes and others were considered unacceptable at the time. They were either viewed as naive attempts to understand the world (which contemporary thinking claimed was all God's doing), or dangerous sources of heresy.
For a fictional, but highly thought provoking account of what ideas were prevalent at the time check out 'The Name of the Rose' by Umberto Eco. For a more fact based but drier account see any books on the treatment of 'heresy' by the churches of the Middle Ages. I'm a particular fan of books on the Baltic crusades - although it's not very well documented.
Chris
That's an excellent point you make about personal information.
I think it would be perfectly acceptable for the bulk of a persons personal information to be made public at some point in the future.
In the UK all our census details go completely public after 100 years, and as such my parents have a 50 cd set with all the records from the 1881 census.
Whilst the advances in medicine are pushing lifespans beyond 100 years now, I wouldn't be the slightest bit concerned if in 2130 (150 yrs after my birth) all my now confidential details were turned over to historians.
A slight concern could be that in the future details will become more and more accesible. Whilst anyone doing enough research could quite correctly conclude that one of my ancestors was stoned as a witch, it's not the sort of thing people at school would ever research or tease me about.
However with advances in AI etc.. it may soon be possible to just dig up dirt on a person and this is a more frightening concept.
It's not surprising that it was re-used as a manuscript. Manuscript writing was a great art and a worthwhile hobby for bored monks, practised widely up to the middle of the millenium. A lot of the works were of religious/Christian content, and some were historic (generally sponsored by rich patrons). Vellum, or processed calf skin, was written on using pigments and natural minerals which varied from crushed beetles to lapis lazuli. Frequently, gold leaves were used to emboss ornamental designs.
Perhaps the most famous lost and found manuscript is the book of Kells. Written by Irish monks in the 8th century, it was lost during viking attacks on monastaries, found buried underground and unearthed, and today resides at Trinity College, Dublin. It's regarded as Ireland's national treasure. (BTW, the word "miniature" used to describe these manuscripts has nothing to do with size, but indicates drawn inline images, from Latin miniatus, past participle of miniare, to color with minium, from minium red lead.)
If you get a chance to see manuscripts at a nearby exhibition, don't miss it. They are fabulous. And simply looking at words written centuries ago in ink on parchment is quite an indescribable feeling.
(In related news: one of the greatest wonders of the ancient world was completely recycled. The bronze Collossus of Rhodes was sold as scrap metal.)
Check out this link to look at some of the old manuscripts of mathematics.
w/m
Now if you had some of Archimedes' writings around the house, would you erase them so you could resuse the paper?! Priorities sure change, I guess.
Let's step into that monk's sandals for a bit:
"Aaah, what a fine day for copying some of the Lord's Holy Prayers. Now where did I put my parchment... Hmm.. what's this then? *Yawn* Some ancient old heathen babbling about bodies in water? How would _that_ ever bring a man closer to God? What a waste of parchment. Hey, brother John, come and have a look at this! Would you believe how _boooooring_ people were 1500 years ago? " Brother John replies: "Well, brother Paul, the heathens must have had too much spare time, with all those slaves doing all their work. Just wash the parchment, and use it for something Good. It's not as if it's the last copy of an important work."
I'm very curious to know if there is a systematic effort underway to search our (limited) stock of ancient parchment scrolls for previous works. It seems like an obvious project, but as underfunded (and competitively proprietary) as archeology and analysis of ancient texts are, I wonder if this has been undertaken.
Anyone out there know anything about this? If so, links, please!
With each passing year, we may be losing what little remains of the 'lost' pre-Alexandrian texts
The truth about trolls: They're just spammers, wasting our time/bandwidth and calling it 'free speech'
This is, BTW, why I never buy that people should be made to pay for the sins of their ancestors. There's not a person alive who could afford to pay for their own ancestors crimes.
Now if you had some of Archimedes' writings around the house, would you erase them so you could resuse the paper?! Priorities sure change, I guess
Well if I was a Greek monk and my choices were hang on to an old Math book or write a prayer book, I'm sure my priority would be the prayer book. It's easy to look back now and sneer at choices that people made a thousand years ago, after all hindsight is 20/20. But who is to say what future generations will think about ours.
I can easily imagine snide comments that will be made about how we callously destroyed the environment, pumped millions in a giant Internet Ponzi scheme when there were more worthwhile causes to support and amassed Nuclear weapons whose poisonous waste will exist for longer than humanity has existed. Think about that next time.
There is a theory that the casing stones from the Great Pyramid were used to build buildings in Cairo. So far there hasn't been a published case were a stone found looked like a casing stone which would have a very interesing angle encoded into it.
As far as preservation of works...no one beast the Egypteans. They used stone and there are millions of preserved documents on things other than stone.
I wonder how much more would be left of the great library at Alexandrea hadn't been the worlds greatest book burning party. For what its worth the librarys location is known because of other documentation survived saying it was at the corner of two streets that exist today.
If you want to read up on some interesting "edititing", look into the temple at Karnak and how its been edited a number of times. In one case a obilisk was edited by putting "footnotes" on the side while leaving the original text.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Lets face it, a print out from a laser printer seems to fade away after a few years.
An inkjetted page could never be recovered after it's been washed, and if you get one of those crappy thermal receipts from McDonalds you cant even read it after it's been sitting next to your fries for 5 minutes.
How will we ever preserve things for future generations with our current technologies? (assuming that at some point in the future the internet gets wiped out)
"Vanished"??? What a civilized way of saying "was stolen".
I just heard on NPR yesterday about researchers looking at old letters from the time of the American Revolution. The words on the paper are important, of course, but medical historians want the actual letters themselves. To smell them.
It seems that when cholera broke out in a town, the mail was sprinkled with vinegar to help sterilize it before it was carried away. Even two hundred years later one can detect the odor of vinegar on many of them, and this offers clues as to the spread of the disease in the colonies at the time.
Just naively archiving old documents onto CD-ROM or something can miss a great deal...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
What I found far more fascinating is the assertion that the math demonstrated "the roots of the gravitational theory and modern calculus." Now I had been taught that Calculus grew out of a problem solving grudge between two famous mathmeticians. Not being a proponent of the "great man" theory, I tended to assume that this breakthrough built on advancements in theorums up to that point.
However, if this text actually shows that Archimedes had the beginnings so many years before, I might be forced to conceed at least a "great man of math" theory. Though considering the dark ages in between, perhaps an examination of the history will show an evolution and reevolution rather than two poles of brilliance.
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...