Archimedes’ bellyache
Having been subjected to X-ray fluorescence, and then some multispectral imaging, the 13th Century Archimedes Palimpsest may have finally revealed its last secret – “that Archimedes, working in the third century BC, considered the concept of actual infinity, something thought to have only been developed in the 19th century, and anticipated calculus.” The Palimpsest, constructed in the 13th Century mostly from an erased 10th Century copy of works by Archimedes, is currently the subject of an exhibition at Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum where …