X-rays, other radiation brings out secrets of ancient times

[Adsos Letter]

Source: By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID | AP Science Writer

Scholars are reconsidering what ancient Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes knew of the concept of infinity, and archaeologists may have found a fossil brain millions of years old, thanks to new ways of looking beneath the surface of ancient objects.

Using modern X-ray and spectral imaging, researchers are uncovering two ancient manuscripts by Archimedes, who lived in Sicily in the third century B.C., Uwe Bergmann of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory told a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on Sunday.

In the 1300s the texts were scraped off the parchment and written over to create a prayer book, Bergmann said. But now scholars have been able to discern the original writing of Archimedes' "The Method" and "The Stomachion," volumes that exist nowhere else.

It emerges that Archimedes was far ahead of his time, using a form of calculus and devising ways to add an infinite number of sums, Bergmann said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/sns-ap-sci-ancient-secrets,0,3146270.story

[aquart]

1. Wow. Special wow to the one who thought of imaging a prayer book.

[tabatha]

2. I know something about that.