Eureka! Archimedes Revealed

pin_gween writes "The Mercury News has an AP wire that shows science uncovering history. 800 years ago a monk scrubbed the text off a goatskin parchment to write prayers. Nothing unusual there, except the parchment contained writings from a copy of Archimedes' Palimpsest. Now scientists are using x-rays, generated by a particle accelerator, to cause tiny amounts of iron left by the original ink to glow without harming the delicate goatskin parchment. It takes 12 hours to scan one page, then the information is posted online."

Comments

at least he didn't use it for other things

[Unknown_monkey]

I mean, we're lucky that he wrote on it. How many ancient writings could we find if someone will look in that monastery's latrine? I bet a lot of ancient texts went to clean some holy man's impurities. After all, it's just pagan writings. Maybe this is the source of the Muslim fear of the Koran being placed on/in toilets?