The Archimedes Codex: How...
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The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity's Greatest Scientist
Part archaeological detective story, part science, and part history, The Archimedes Codex tells the astonishing story of a lost manuscript, from its tenth-century creation in ancient Constantinople to the auction block at Christiea manuscript that established, for the first time, the extent of his mathematical genius, which was two thousand years ahead of modern science.
Paperback, 336 pages
Published
January 9th 2009
by Da Capo Press
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In 1998 a battered manuscript was won at auction for two million dollars by an anonymous buyer. It was a palimpsest – a book that was made from the pages stripped from earlier works where the earlier words were scrapped off and a new text was written over it. This was common practice in medieval times when paper was a valuable commodity. The book that was purchased was a simple thirteenth-century payer book. However, that is not what made the book valuable. The real value was the faint impr...more
This is a well-written and highly readable account of the 20th century discovery and recent high-tech analysis of the Archimedes Codex -- a medieval prayer book that had been constructed by "erasing" and overwriting an 11th century copy of some mathematical writings of Archimedes.
The authors start by boldly asserting that Archimedes was the greatest scientist who ever lived. Well, some of us may quibble that honor should go to Newton, who mathematics dramatically simplified ...more
The authors start by boldly asserting that Archimedes was the greatest scientist who ever lived. Well, some of us may quibble that honor should go to Newton, who mathematics dramatically simplified ...more
I thought this was pretty fascinating! The writing is very engaging, but really the story of the Archimedes Codex is amazing enough on its own.
The book was written by Will Noel, a curator for the Walters Art Museum, and Reviel Netz, a math and science historian and classics and philosophy professor at Stanford. The two of them alternate chapers. Noel generally focuses on the work done between 1999 and 2007 (when the book was published), by many individuals and using lots of differen...more
The book was written by Will Noel, a curator for the Walters Art Museum, and Reviel Netz, a math and science historian and classics and philosophy professor at Stanford. The two of them alternate chapers. Noel generally focuses on the work done between 1999 and 2007 (when the book was published), by many individuals and using lots of differen...more
Der Spiegel magazine names Jeff Bezos as the unnamed buyer of the palimpsest. The German magazine also refutes several key points about previous scholarship of the book. The book completely avoids controversial ownership disputes, Der Spiegel gives the salacious details.
There are actually (at least) two authors of this book, and they all refer to themselves as "I" without identifying who is writing. Some aspects of the book cover project management, others about the scienc...more
There are actually (at least) two authors of this book, and they all refer to themselves as "I" without identifying who is writing. Some aspects of the book cover project management, others about the scienc...more
I enjoyed learning about Archimedes and what he and other ancient Greeks were able to discover about math and science. They apparently knew quite a lot. The story of the codex itself was interesting too. How a nearly destroyed medieval prayer book contained the only copy of some of Archimedes' writings.
What I disliked was how the story was told. It was told from the point of view of the men who helped conduct the research. The tone was rather dry and academic. I can't help but think how a ...more
What I disliked was how the story was told. It was told from the point of view of the men who helped conduct the research. The tone was rather dry and academic. I can't help but think how a ...more
A surprisingly enjoyable read, considering that it had a lot of geometry in it, which for me is rocket science. I saw the Archimedes Codex when it came to the Field Museum and thanks to the authors clear and interesting prose, can now throw around words like palimpsest like I know what it is (basically, somebody wants to write something, has nothing to write on, so scrapes off what another wrote, turns the surface around and writes again - usually something far less interesting than what's under...more
"Ein Kodex, also eine Schrift in Buchform, als Palimpsest um 1200 entstanden, weist den Weg zu Archimedes. Die beiden Autoren, William Noel, der Kurator des Walters Kunstmuseum in Baltimore und Reviel Netz, Professor für antike Wissenschaft an der Stanford University, zeigen in wechselnden Beiträgen die Geschichte des Buches, die Geschichte der Entzifferung und die Geschichte der Wiederentdeckung der Mathematik des Archimedes.
Ein Palimpsest ist ein ""recyceltes"" ...more
Ein Palimpsest ist ein ""recyceltes"" ...more
Teresa B
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
museum curators, die hard historians, mathematicians
Recommended to Teresa by:
Cheryl Boyd
What an interesting, but tough book to read! As a matter of fact, The Archimedes Codex, written by TWO authors, reads like THREE different books dealing with an unusually overlapping set of ideas.
1. This is about the HISTORICAL journey of the ancient writings of a brilliant Greek scientist/mathematician who died almost 200 years before Christ. Time and politics were not kind to ancient records.
2. This is about unraveling the actual words of Archimedes, from the ONLY s...more
1. This is about the HISTORICAL journey of the ancient writings of a brilliant Greek scientist/mathematician who died almost 200 years before Christ. Time and politics were not kind to ancient records.
2. This is about unraveling the actual words of Archimedes, from the ONLY s...more
Jeroen
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
anyone interested in scientific discovery, mathematics and history
I liked this book primarily because of the way the discovery of the palimpsest (and the information therein) is told. It reads like a suspense/thriller novel. I was less charmed by the failure of the writers to remain critical about the influence of ingorance and religion upon the systematic distruction of knowledge. The authors are so enormously happy and thrilled about the fact that the palimpsest remains through its (unknowing) inclusion in a prayerbook, that they cannot escape the (all to hu...more
A very interesting look at mathematical archeology, and the clever techniques the team used to decipher their discoveries. It is unfortunate that the progress of science over the last two thousand years suffered such a great loss of knowledge through the 300 - 1400 centuries (much like the stock market these past 10 years), but fascinating to learn how the ancients made even more progress than we had before given them credit. If only we could have complete copies of all of their works!
I didn't like this quite as much as Ron, but it is a good read. Things I didn't like: uneven tone and style (almost inevitable with multiple writers) and setting up straw villains (I think only a naive reader wouldn't believe that his scribe-bashing is going to "turn around"). Things I very much did like: getting a sense of Greek mathematics (especially the reliance on diagrams -- that was really well explained, especially in terms of how different a way of thinking it represents) and ...more
This book is almost completely excellent. The story is compelling from multiple perspectives, from the history of mathematics to the technology of writing and its preservation to the surprisingly exciting life of a classics curator at a museum in Baltimore. I admit to knowing nothing of medieval or ancient palimsests or other writing vehicles, yet I was mesmerized by the minutiae of the treatment of the relic, and the expertise that it embodies, as well as the expertise necessary to read it. ...more
Although the author's writing style is not very polished, his enthusiasm for the subject is infectious and you find yourself drawn into the search for the ancient writings of Archimedes that are hidden underneath the text of a twelfth century prayer book. I'm not a math person but I was fascinated by the early mathematical concepts developed by Archimedes. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the history of mathematics and the history of this ancient ...more
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A great story of an amazing manuscript. I wished for more discussion of the math and the actual contents rather than of how the material was recovered. The story taught me a lot about historical preservation and some amazing techniques for salvaging information in circumstances that look hopeless.
This book will be interesting to those who like the history of science and mathematics. However, the story extends into expositions on how information has been saved and passed on from century to century, a discussion of the codex (book) format as a major technological breakthrough over the scroll, and the scientific tools used to decipher a palimpsest. The book suffers at times from being co-written by a museum curator and a Greek/Ancient Mathematics scholar. The voice is not consistent, and th...more
Greek mathematician Archimedes lived around 250 BC. No surprise that none of his original papyrus scrolls has survived. What did surprise me was than not one single Dark Ages-era copy of a copy of his texts has survived either -- except for this one last thousand year-old bundle of animal skin. And it's been unbound, erased, scraped clean, rebound, written over by monks, glued together, painted over and gone moldy through centuries of being shuttled and hidden everywhere from Constantinople to J...more
About 1/2 way through, a good read even is history of Math is not exactly your cup of tea. Lots of info on the history of the codex from when Archimedes wrote the original letters and following the physical codex from when it was over written with Greek prayers till now.
Good book on radical new manuscript conservation efforts. The background on Archimedes and how our understanding of him should change is valuable. I only wish they included the translated new texts discovered in the manuscript.
The two authors, Netz a historian of math and Noel a museum curator, take turns telling the incredible story of a long-lost manuscript containing some unknown works of Archimedes. Noel enjoys telling the story as if he were writing an Indiana Jones screenplay. The manuscript was bought at auction by a shadowy benefactor who spares no expense to hire the best scientists to unravel the palimpsest's secrets. Netz details what was already known about the genius of Archimedes and shows how the disc...more
pretty cool how this came about! also interesting to see both guys perspectives on it! ah history!
This book brought together math, science, history, and technology. I found it to be extremely interesting, especially as a teacher of math and computer science.
I think this would've been perhaps a three or four star rating, however I bought the ebook version for my Kindle and had a tough time looking at the diagrams. No fault of the author, but in specific sections of the book, I really needed to be able to flip back and consult the diagrams, and on a Kindle this is annoying.
Wow! A fascinating story about a parchment palimpset with text from Archimedes, covered by prayers and in some cases, forged full-page paintings -- how experts managed to "uncover" the ancient Greek to reveal more of the genius of Archimedes than previously known; how experts struggled to read the text when much was missing -- discarded pages, moldy pages, etc. Written by a mathematician and an antique book conservator, the chapters alternate -- those by the mathematician are harder to...more
Well, I got perhaps 50 pages into it and I was fine. I got it. They saved the book. They saved Archimedes' works. I wish I'd had the patience and time to work out the math proofs...and if I'd really set aside the time for it, I would have. But not at this point in my life. Good to read, informative. I think I'll be picking up a book on Archimedes...a different book.
I agree with the reviews about the uneven tone, but I didn't mind it so much. I wish they had told me when they were swi...more
I agree with the reviews about the uneven tone, but I didn't mind it so much. I wish they had told me when they were swi...more
I admit I glossed over some of the Archimedian math explanations, but over all I greatly enjoyed this book, especially the description of how the team slowly deciphered the palimpsest.
netz is by far the weaker of the two authors
This porridge was just right (my best pappa bear impression). I love history, mystery, science, math and real life adventure all jammed into one volume. This story has just about everything. The authors comfortably blend it all into a compelling tale. the greatest mind of all time, the guy I would go back in time to meet if I found the keys to the Delorian, Archimedes!
This is a fascinating and easy read that pulls together history, manuscript studies (paleography), mathematics, and modern science in an approachable and interesting way. The only difficulty I had with parts of this book was in following some of the mathematical reasonings of Archimedes, but hey, I'm no mathematician, so that's not terribly surprising. :)
A very good history of a unique manuscript. A bit of accessible mathematics, hidden history, and textual criticism thrown in make this a good read; both authors lack of writing experience do detract a little. After this I read on wikipedia that this story continues; I almost wish the book had been delayed a few more years.
Interesting look at the history of written works (palimpsests, the codex, papyrus rolls) and how they changed over time. Really enjoyed the history part of this, but totally skipped over all of the Archimedes formulas / theories. Math is not intriguing to me.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book salvation and restoration | 1 | 2 | Jul 31, 2009 11:38am |
