On Floating Bodies and other ancient texts

At a slight tangent to today’s posts, but fascinating nonetheless, comes this report from the BBC on how a technique known as X-ray fluorescence is being used to reveal texts on parchments dating from the 10th Century and used to construct a 13th Century palimpsest. The texts had been transcribed from originals written by, amongst others, the Greek mathematican Archimedes. Press release here. For more information see here.. and there will be a live webcast of the latest work at the Exploratorium science museum on Friday 4th August 4pm PDT [which converts to 12 midnight here – Ed]

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