X-rays reveal Archimedes secrets

BBC News ^ | 2 August 2006 | Jonathan Fildes

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

X-rays reveal Archimedes secrets

By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News

A series of hidden texts written by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being revealed by US scientists.

Until now, the pages have remained obscured by paintings and texts laid down on top of the original writings.

Using a non-destructive technique known as X-ray fluorescence, the researchers are able to peer through these later additions to read the underlying text.

[dread78645]

Turning the machine off in the middle of the research is just plain silly but not getting it back until who knows when or if is beyond ridiculous.

Cornell doesn't have the synchrotron, Stanford does. Cornell is just renting/borrowing time on it.
The machine "belongs" to the Dept. of Energy (you & me); Stanford just schedules blocks of research time based on whatever agreement they have with the DOE.
If Cornell wants more time they can get back in line at SSRL or find another lab.

[Gumlegs]

A crummy commercial?!?!

[King Prout]

good.

[onedoug]

Interesting.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Thanks for posting the picture!

[SunkenCiv]

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[GOPJ]

Interesting...

[GOPJ]

NASA or whoever the agency was, gave the negatives to a scientist in Alabama telling her anything she could do would be better than the zero information they were getting from the film. What she did was to irradiate the b&w negatives, making the silver that was in the emulsion radioactive. Then she contacted printed the negatives using only the radiation to do the exposing. The images were adequate. Mission accomplished.

Cool story. The name of that scientist would have been a nice addition...

[discostu]

Welcome to life in science. Especially sciences that have more people than necessary equipment. Every astronomer has to put up with the same thing, they schedule telescope time months, even years out, then there’s a cloudy night, too bad, here’s how to reschedule.