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Eureka! Archimedes Revealed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the old-school dept.

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."

2 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Too cool! by Stephen+Maturin · · Score: 0, Troll

    "inconcieveable"
    You keep using that word. I don't think you know what it means.

    --
    Non tam praeclarum est scire Latine, quam turpe nescire
    -- Cicero
  2. Re:OK... So where are the Translations??? by gd23ka · · Score: 0, Troll

    As a scientist: you're so full of it. Of course I'm hiding behind my Slashdot identity here and wouldn't
    put it so bluntly in real life but still: you have no idea what you're talking about.

    The gentleman here is complaining why "science" or rather its (orthodox) findings are so inaccessible to
    the public and he has a damm good point here.

    1. I had latin and greek class in highschool .. I don't think that's even offered in the USA
    today and that kind of knowledge could come in handy perusing that kind of material.
    But even so a lot of of material out there could be transcoded into what the public can understand
    even in the deliberately dumbed down state it is today.

    2. Science like any other religion has its orthodoxy and even to some degree its own Vatican and
    don't you dare publish anything heretical, excommunication means loss of grants and tenure. As
    a religion it hides behind scripture that is not meant to be accessible to the uninitiated layperson.

    So yes! Where are those translations! And while we're at it, why is it that not every single damm
    piece of parchment and clay tablet is on the internet for everyone to work with, oh and starting with
    the Dead Sea Scrolls which everybody knows about but few are allowed to see?? Why is it that the
    Vatican can hide tons of ancient scripts from us??

    To anybody withholding information from the public and preventing research, here's a heart-felt
    F U C K Y O U!! (I can say that when I'm hiding behind gd23ka)