William Noel: Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes

http://www.ted.com How do you read a two-thousand-year-old manuscript that has been erased, cut up, written on and painted over? With a powerful particle accelerator, of course! Ancient books curator William Noel tells the fascinating story behind the Archimedes palimpsest, a Byzantine prayer book containing previously-unknown original writings from ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes and others.

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[Mario G.H.]

Brilliant! After 2000 years of hiding human advance by means of religion, those prayers were removed by means of a particle accelerator and The Truth was found!

That has to be poetic justice.

[Shketri]

this guy deserves a medal

[ignati123]

If a math text applies to the physical world, which is temporal, limited, and possessing death, then how is a prayer text, which re-opens communion with God, and a subsequent transcendence of the physical infinitely less valuable?

[ignati123]

Both writings are valuable. The prayers were not removed, as they were spoken to God, and do not dwell on paper. Truth is truth, whether physical or spiritual.

Non-believers will try to erase the spiritual Truth, and hold only physical truth. In the end, at the end of their lives, the physical truth, while useful and good previously, will be of no assistance. Those who try to pervert mankind and erase religion will enter a world where what they do have, means nothing.

That is poetic justice.

[megamastah]

Best TED speech ever.

[Duodecillian]

I hated to hear his lips smacking together every 5 seconds, but besides that it was an amazing speech.

[Angelos Papadopoulos]

Fantastic Indeed!