The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity's Greatest Scientist |  | Authors: Reviel Netz, William Noel
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Category: Book
List Price: $18.00
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Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 282142
Media: Paperback
Pages: 336
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0306817373
Dewey Decimal Number: 510
EAN: 9780306817373
ASIN: 0306817373
Publication Date: January 9, 2009
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Product Description
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 Christie’s in New York, and how a team of scholars used the latest imaging technology to reveal and decipher the original text. What they found was the earliest surviving manuscript by Archimedes (287 BC-212 BC), the greatest mathematician of antiquity—a manuscript that established, for the first time, the extent of his mathematical genius, which was two thousand years ahead of modern science.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
 A splendid story, splendidly told January 27, 2008
Observer (Boston, MA, USA)
18 out of 18 found this review helpful
Reviel Netz and William Noel have given us a well written, immensely informative and hugely entertaining glimpse into the world of Archimedes, mathematical thinking, antiquarian book collecting, manuscript conservation and, above all, puzzle solving. Puzzle solving that is dependent on the mind-boggling expertise of linguists, classicists, mathematicians, chemists, computer scientists and imaging experts.
Mr. B, the anonymous but known purchaser of what remains of Codex C and the underwriter of the conservation and interpretative work, clearly needs to be recognized for his huge and essential financial contribution.
Does anyone know who Mr. B is?
The alternating chapters on the history and restoration of the manuscript and its mathematical content works wonderfully. Reviel Netz does a great job explaining the geometry and the significance of Archimedes' thought experiments.
The one minor issue I have is the tendency for overstatement. Netz may well be right that nobody before Archimedes (and even Newton) had the same type of thoughts - but the reality is that given the destruction of so many early manuscripts, we simply do not know. I also am less sure than Prof. Netz that Archimedes, the builder of catapaults and other engineering devices and an astronomer, didn't use the physical world to ground his mathematical ideas - thereby accounting for some of his brilliant mathematical ideas. For example, it is not hard to imagine that Archimedes might have been using his geometry to create a heliocentric model - why else the deep interest in parabolas? But then Prof. Netz like all good educators has motivated me to find other expositions of Archimedes and his science.
Regardless, this is a wonderful book, profusely illustrated with both color photographs and diagrams. The authors are also very gracious in acknowledging the work of literally dozens of experts. It will undoubtely inspire a host of fiction writers.
A brilliant book about an amazing discovery June 21, 2007
Eleftherios Chrysopoulos (Athens, Greece)
29 out of 32 found this review helpful
This book is truly remarkable although can be at times tiring. It tells the story of the palimpsest which was sold at an auction in 1998. The author takes us on a journey that spans through the early European history up to the Byzantine era and even the Second World War.
Although it encompasses the theories that have so far been discovered in the codex originally written by Archimedes himself in a letter, and thus a fair bit of Mathematics is involved, it can be a very enjoyable experience. You can ignore the parts in which the author explains the technology behind the imaging systems they used to uncover the original texts or the logistics of the processes involved, but then you would have missed a part of the whole adventure.
This book is about unraveling history and discovering its secrets. What a journey indeed !
An enthralling read! A must buy! October 25, 2007
A reader
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
A distinguished team of curators, conservators, imaging scientists and scholars have been working tirelessly over the past 10 years, proving the true meaning of the age-old maxim: "don't judge a book by its cover." The history uncovered in the decaying pages of the Archimedes Palimpsest, delightfully brought to life in this book, will truly astound you. Alternating chapters, Noel and Netz offer an enthralling account of the history behind this extraordinary manuscript, and the newly rediscovered -astonishing- accomplishments of Archimedes. This is a fantastic and genuinely exciting read. The chapters by Noel are gripping and those by Netz will excite even the most math-phobic reader. I highly recommend this book! Happy reading to all!
The Archimedes Codex works on multiple levels February 22, 2008
Frank H. Sanders
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
The Archimedes Codex is a three-in-one book: First, it tells the fascinating story of how a famous but apparently lost text of Archimedes was found in the late 20th century and is being gradually recovered in a readable form. Second, it reveals some of the functioning of one the most brilliant mathematical and engineering brains in history. And finally, it indicates, in the same vein as the recently re-examined Antikythera machine, the enormity of the quantity of important information from antiquity that has been lost, especially in the fields of science, engineering and mathematics. This book, clearly written and well-illustrated, would be a good choice for anyone who is interested in either classical scholarship, the history of mathematics, or historical mysteries and their solutions.
Revealing Spellbinder! February 20, 2009
Linda G. Camp (MN, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Raiders of the Lost Ark has NOTHING on The Archimedes Codex! Never have I been caught up in such revealing discovery and compelling adventure in a book of such historical and scientific accuracy as The Archimedes Codex. With the fascination of a spellbinding novel and the accuracy of a text, this book follows the exciting rediscovery of the work of one of the world's greatest mathematicians and geniuses of all time, Archimedes of Syracuse. It's a tale of great importance that follows a mysterious book through its auction at Christie's in London, England to The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore for scholarly study, imaging, and conservation, all of this funded by the highest bidder (two million dollars) and owner of this captivating piece of historical significance.
Codex C, the Archimedes palimpsest, is a parchment manuscript consisting of 174 parchment folios, which, in themselves, consist of at least seven treatises by Archimedes. Although these works of Archimedes don't account for the entire palimpsest, these are of major importance.
The word "palimpsest" comes from a Greek word meaning "scraped again." This means that the original text (in this case, the text written by Archimedes) has been "scraped" and new text written over it. Original medieval manuscripts were made of "scraped" animal skin which was called "parchment." It was the practice in medieval times to re-use parchment when unused animal hide was scarce or temporarily unavailable. Such was the case with Archimedes' Codex C (and with the additional manuscripts from other authors), in the making of a Byzantine prayer book or "euchologion" by a monk or monks in the year 1229 in Jerusalem.
Archimedes' treatises used to make the subject palimpsest include: The Equilibrium of Planes, On Floating Bodies, The Measurement of Circles, Spiral Lines, The Method of Mechanical Theoreums, Sphere and Cylinder, and The Stomachion. Of all these works, On Floating Bodies, the Stomachion, and The Method of Mechanical Theorums are of the most important in our understanding of the work of Archimedes.
In the making of the palimpsest, other works that were used were the writings of Hyperides, a 4th century B.C. orator. Previous to the discovery of this palimpsest, his work was found only in papyrus fragments and through quotes by other authors. There are ten pages of this author's work included in the Archimedes palimpsest.
Also included are six folios from an unidentified Neoplatonic philosophical text, four folios from a book of liturgy, and twelve pages from two other books yet to be deciphered. What this means is that parts of all the texts involved were removed from their original bindings (if indeed they were bound) long ago and the pages "scraped" and overwritten with new text and then rebound to become a different book, in this case an euchologion or prayer book... hence, the palimpsest of this story.
While all of this may seem to the reader of this review as rather dry information, the authors have, without effort to dramatize or embellish, captured a bigger-than-life true tale of extraordinary and astonishing proportions, one that keeps the reader spellbound through the entire book.
If math is your bag, you'll be captivated; if you're math-phobic, I suggest you try to lay the book down. You'll find yourself unable to do so, even if you skip the math sections!
This book is a high-flying, gripping tale of major importance! Get it... read it... you'll be amazed, not only by what's been discovered, but by what has not. There were thousands of works destroyed by fire and book burnings in the past. Some of these works were copied and hidden away or have stood neglected in the shelves of relatives of collectors long dead. What great works might we yet discover?
As for the disgruntled reviewer, I might reiterate that the gist of this book is the "REdiscovery" of the work of Archimedes. It does not make other claims or belabor the origin of his knowledge. What it does do, and quite successfully, is ignite the fire of adventure in the discovery of long lost grails and codices while instilling in the reader the fact that not all such adventures are fiction.
I highly recommend this book!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 25
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