First, space-imaging-derived infrared scanning was used to recover illegible parts of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Now, a particle accelerator used in plant biology research is being used to recover lost works by Archimedes:

A particle accelerator is being used to reveal the long-lost writings of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, work hidden for centuries after a Christian monk wrote over it in the Middle Ages...

Scholars believe the treatise was copied by a scribe in the 10th century from Archimedes' original Greek scrolls, written in the third century B.C.

It was erased about 200 years later by a monk who reused the parchment for a prayer book, creating a twice-used parchment book known as a "palimpsest." In the 12th century, parchment — scraped and dried animal skins — was rare and costly, and Archimedes' works were in less demand...

Ouch. One wonders how many times this kind of thing was done, and what sort of classical legacy we might have today had cheap and abundant paper been adopted in Europe a few centuries sooner.

"It's the only one that contains diagrams that may bear any resemblance to the diagrams Archimedes himself drew in the sand in Syracuse 2000 years ago," Noel said.

And he knows this...how?

While reading an article on the text, Stanford physicist Uwe Bergmann realized he could use a particle accelerator to detect small amounts of iron in the ink. The electrons speeding along the circular accelerator emit X-rays that can be used to cause the iron to fluoresce, or glow...

The so-called Archimedes Palimpsest includes the only copy of the treatise "Method of Mechanical Theorems," in which Archimedes explains how he used mechanical means to develop his mathematical theorems. It is also the only source in the original Greek for the treatise "On Floating Bodies," in which Archimedes deals with the physics of flotation and gravity.

I doubt the information to be revealed by this technique is going to be of much scientific (vs. historical) importance, given its age, but it's still a fascinating undertaking. Who knows what other lost works are hidden away in other medieval manuscripts, just waiting to be recovered by such techniques?

Posted by T.L. James on May 21, 2005 08:24 PM