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 The Archimedes Codex :: 030681580X
Description
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| Drawings and writings by Archimedes, previously thought to have been destroyed, have been uncovered beneath the pages of a 13th-century monk's prayer book. These hidden texts, slowly being retrieved and deciphered by scientists, show that Archimedes' thinking (2,200 years ago) was even ahead of Isaac Newton in the 17th century. Archimedes discovered the value of Pi, he developed the theory of specific gravity and made steps towards the development of calculus. Everything we know about him comes from three manuscripts, two of which have disappeared. The third, currently in the Walters Art Museum, is a palimpsest - the text has been scraped off, the book taken apart and its parchment re-used, in this case as a prayer book. William Noel, the project director, and Reviel Netz, a historian of ancient mathematics, tell the enthralling story of the survival of that prayer book from 1229 to the present, and examine the process of recovering the invaluable text underneath as well as investigating into why that text is so important. Combining intrigue, lost books, academic detection and final revelations which rewrite the history of science and mathematics, The Archimedes Codex will be a major publishing event. Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
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Author: Guest
This book is truly remarkable although can be at times tiring. It tells the story of the palimpsest which was sold at an auction in 1998. The author takes us on a journey that spans through the early European history up to the Byzantine era and even the Second World War.
Although it encompasses the theories that have so far been discovered in the codex originally written by Archimedes himself in a letter, and thus a fair bit of Mathematics is involved, it can be a very enjoyable experience. You can ignore the parts in which the author explains the technology behind the imaging systems they used to uncover the original texts or the logistics of the processes involved, but then you would have missed a part of the whole adventure.
This book is about unraveling history and discovering its secrets. What a journey indeed !
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