Sometimes it takes a magnifying glass to decipher an ancient text,
and sometimes it takes a linear accelerator. During a live
Webcast* from the Exploratorium in San Francisco, California,
scholars will fire up an atom smasher to expose concealed writings
by the Greek mathematician Archimedes (287-212 B.C.E.).

Known as the Archimedes Palimpsest, the manuscript in question
contains the only known copy of one of the great thinker's
treatises. But it has taken a beating. Medieval monks reused the
pages, and a collector further defaced the work by adding
paintings. Applying techniques such as multispectral imaging,
researchers have uncovered much of the original text, but some
remains unreadable.

For the Webcast, experts will train a powerful x-ray beam from the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center on a previously hidden section
of the manuscript, causing the underlying ink to fluoresce. A Greek
scholar and other Archimedeans will decipher the glowing writing
and discuss its significance.

The event begins at 7 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time on 4 August.

To learn more about the palimpsest, hop over to this site**
from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

*
http://www.exploratorium.edu/archimedes

**
http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org