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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."
So, in other words, you could say that Archimedes had the first post. :) Sorry, could not resist.
Well, that, and the fact that some monk dude scrawled his love letters to god all over the bloody text!
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
4 Carrots
2 Pints of milk
Brithday card for aunt Mavis
Check out the article -
It was probably the only reason we got these writings in our hand.
If it was just the text of archimedes, then it would have been destroyed during the dark ages...
Since it was a prayer book, nobody dared, and now we have the data.
Every action has consequences, and some of them are inconcieveable
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
I would say to put any Anti-Religious Zealotry aside, and think about it this way. How many files have you deleted from your hard-drive that perhaps in a couple hundred years would allow archeologist to get better insight on your generation, or the previous ones. Parchment was not as cheap as it was today. It took considerable amount of work just to create it, and Rubbing out the Old stuff for the New stuff seems like best situation, for the times. This period was well in the dark ages, saving old stuff wasn't the goal or even seemed that valuable. And besides as far as most were concerned at the time, this is old stuff from a dead civilization, make room for our new more modern method.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This is a fairly obscure term, so most non-specialists don't know it. A "palimpsest" is a piece of parchment that has been re-used. This particular palimpsest contains stuff by Archimedes; and so it is called "the Archimedes Palimpsest." It is not "a copy of Archimedes' Palimpsest," it is THE Archimedes palimpsest.
Finally I can use my LIS nerdiness on slashdot, bastion of computer, science, and math nerds.
The summary says "Nothing unusual there, except the parchment contained writings from a copy of Archimedes' Palimpsest," using the term palimpsest incorrectly. By calling it "a copy of Archimedes' Palimpsest," the summary implies that Archimedes wrote something--a Palimpsest--which was then copied and found on this random scrap of parchment.
In actuality, a palimpsest is a parchment already inscribed where the original ink was scraped off for reuse. Parchment, being the skin of a calf, sheep or goat, was in the Middle Ages very expensive (there is an argument that the Gutenberg revolution was fuelled more by cheap paper then by the printing press, but I digress). It was not discarded, but often reused by monks in Medieval scriptoria.
Many works from antiquity, once thought lost, are found serendipitously through palimpsest, many of them pagan works overwritten in favour of Christian ones. So, what we have found is a palimpsest of a manuscript copy of Archimedes, not a copy of Archimedes' palimpsest
My last girlfriend complained that I didn't know enough about Heraclitus and that's why she was leaving. I didn't realize she knew that much about ancient greeks. I guess she studied Heraclitus a lot on her own when I fell asleep.
Why are women so complicated? Find out how little I know here.
a hard line between the academics and the "public"...
The hard line is in your head. Scientists are part of "the public".
The only thing stopping you from becoming a scientist is a few years of education. During this process you will not only learn the important stuff but also more importantly you will learn where and how to find the knowledge you need. There's no conspiracy to keep information from you, but it seems that you want to know things without actually having to learn them. No one is obligated to pour knowledge into your head. That stopped once mom and dad got fed up of answering your questions as a toddler. You can find all of those "obscure science magazines" at any decent library, or online. Perhaps you would also like to complain about scientists writing in "obscure technical jargon" in these magazines as well?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
One thing to keep in mind is that just because this palimpset is the only copy that we know about today, doesn't mean that there weren't other copies extant at the time it was reused; and at the time it was probably not such a unique text. Remember that Constantinople (now Istanbul) had just been sacked in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, and things were still quite chaotic. At that time (1229) the city would still have been controlled by the Crusaders (it was not retaken by the Byzantines until 1261). In addition the city was sacked again in 1453 when it was conquered by the Turks, after which the Church and Byzantine civilization in general underwent systematic persecution and suppression. All of these disruptions have caused the loss of huge numbers of texts.
The Archimedes manuscript is not the only manuscript reused to make the prayer book - there are several other texts that were also used, including some others which are now also our only remaining copies. These include both pagan writers and other Christian texts. Again, we have little reason to think that any of these would have been considered particularly unique at the time.
Events have not been kind to ancient manuscripts generally; what we have left today is only a relatively small sampling of what was originally a vast ancient literature. The Church has often been blamed, and in the case of pagan religious texts there may be some justice in the charge; but what have doubtless been much bigger culprits for the bulk of the destruction have been marauding armies, fires, floods, and simply the ravages of time as old manuscripts decay without having been copied.