One of the most dramatic revelations of Archimedes’ work was done using X-ray fluorescence. A painting, forged in the 1940s by one of the book’s former owners, obscured the original text, but X-rays penetrated the painting and highlighted the iron in the ancient ink, revealing a page of Archimedes’ treatise The Method of Mechanical Theorems. The entire process of uncovering this and his other ideas is made possible by modern mathematics and physics, which are built on his discoveries and techniques. This completion of a circle of progress is entirely appropriate since one of Archimedes’ accomplishments that wasn’t lost is his approximation of π.
Will Noel and Roger L. Easton, Jr.
Hear about uncovering and discovering lost works of Archimedes.
Part 1
Part 2
For More Information:The Archimedes Codex, Reviel Netz and William Noel, 2007.