Name: Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes
Uploaded: 2012-05-29T15:07:14Z
Duration: 14 min 36 s
Description: How do you read a two-thousand-year-old manuscript that has been erased, cut up, written on and painted over? With a powerful particle accelerator, of course! Ancient books curator William Noel tells the fascinating story behind the Archimedes palimpsest, a Byzantine prayer book containing previously-unknown original writings from ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and others.

How do you read a two-thousand-year-old manuscript that has been erased, cut up, written on and painted over? With a powerful particle accelerator, of course! Ancient books curator William Noel tells the fascinating story behind the Archimedes palimpsest, a Byzantine prayer book containing previously-unknown original writings from ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and others.

William Noel: Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes

Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes

Revealing Archimedes' works lost for 700 years through a Byzantine prayer book, a testament to the persistence of knowledge.

Discovery of 'The Stomachion' in Archimedes palimpsest shows it's the earliest study in combinatorics, expanding our mathematical heritage.

Porphyry's ancient commentary on Aristotle found, enriching our understanding of early philosophical thought and its development.