Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes
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Not SyncedThe great texts of the ancient world
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Not Synceddon't survive to us in their original form.
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Not SyncedThey survive because Medieval scribes copied them
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Not Syncedand copied them and copied them.
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Not SyncedAnd so it is which Archimedes,
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Not Syncedthe great Greek mathematician.
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Not SyncedEverything we know about Archimedes as a mathematician
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Not Syncedwe know about because of just three books,
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Not Syncedand they're called A, B and C.
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Not SyncedAnd A was lost by an Italian humanist in 1564.
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Not SyncedAnd B was last heard of in the Pope's Library
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Not Syncedabout a hundred miles north of Rome in [unclear] in 1311.
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Not SyncedNow Codex C was only discovered in 1906,
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Not Syncedand it landed on my desk in Baltimore
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Not Syncedon the 19th of January, 1999.
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Not SyncedAnd this is Codex C here.
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Not SyncedNow Codex C is actually buried in this book.
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Not SyncedIt's buried treasure.
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Not SyncedBecause this book is actually a prayer book.
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Not SyncedIt was finished by a guy called Johannes Myrones
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Not Syncedon the 14th of April, 2029.
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Not SyncedAnd to make his prayer book he used parchment.
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Not SyncedBut he didn't use new parchment,
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Not Syncedhe used parchment recycled from earlier manuscripts,
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Not Syncedand there were seven of them.
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Not SyncedAnd Archimedes Codex C was just one of those seven.
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Not SyncedHe took apart the Archimedes manuscript and the other seven manuscripts.
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Not SyncedHe erased all of their texts,
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Not Syncedand then he cut the sheets down in the middle,
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Not Syncedhe shuffled them up,
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Not Syncedand he rotated them 90 degrees,
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Not Syncedand he wrote prayers on top of these books.
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Not SyncedAnd essentially these seven manuscripts
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Not Synceddisappeared for 700 years, and we have a prayer book.
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Not SyncedThe prayer book was discovered by this guy,
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Not SyncedJohan Ludvig Heiberg, in 1906.
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Not SyncedAnd with just a magnifying glass,
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Not Syncedhe transcribed as much of the text as he could.
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Not SyncedAnd the thing is that he found two texts in this manuscript
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Not Syncedthat were unique texts.
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Not SyncedThey weren't an A and B at all;
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Not Syncedthey were completely new texts by Archimedes,
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Not Syncedand they were called "The Method" and "The Stomachion."
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Not SyncedAnd it became a world famous manuscript.
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Not SyncedNow it should be clear by now
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Not Syncedthat this book is in bad condition.
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Not SyncedIt got in worse condition in the 20th century
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Not Syncedafter Heiberg saw it.
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Not SyncedForgeries were painted over it,
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Not Syncedand it suffered very badly from mold.
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Not SyncedThis book is the definition of a write-off.
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Not SyncedIt's the sort of book
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Not Syncedthat you thought would be in an institution.
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Not SyncedBut it's not in an institution,
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Not Syncedit was bought by a private owner in 1998.
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Not SyncedWhy did he buy this book?
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Not SyncedBecause he wanted to make that which was fragile safe.
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Not SyncedHe wanted to make that which was unique ubiquitous.
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Not SyncedHe wanted to make that which was expensive free.
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Not SyncedAnd he wanted to do this as a matter of principle.
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Not SyncedBecause not many people are really going to read Archimedes in ancient Greek,
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Not Syncedbut they should have the chance to do it.
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Not SyncedSo he gathered around himself the friends of Archimedes,
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Not Syncedand he promised to pay for all the work.
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Not SyncedAnd it was an expensive job,
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Not Syncedbut actually it wouldn't be as much as you think
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Not Syncedbecause these people, they didn't come for money,
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Not Syncedthey came for Archimedes.
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Not SyncedAnd they came from all sorts of different backgrounds.
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Not SyncedThey came in from particle physics,
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Not Syncedthey came from classical philology,
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Not Syncedthey came from book conservation,
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Not Syncedthey came from ancient mathematics,
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Not Syncedthey came from data management,
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Not Syncedthey came from scientific imaging and program management.
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Not SyncedAnd they got together to work on this manuscript.
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Not SyncedThe first problem was a conservation problem.
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Not SyncedAnd this is the sort of thing that we had to deal with.
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Not SyncedThere was glue on the spine of the book.
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Not SyncedAnd if you look at this photograph carefully,
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Not Syncedthe bottom half of this rather brown.
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Not SyncedAnd that glue is hide glue.
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Not SyncedNow if you're a conservator,
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Not Syncedyou can take off this glue reasonably easily.
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Not SyncedThe top half is Elmer's wood glue.
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Not SyncedIt's polyvinyl acetate emulsion.
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Not SyncedIt doesn't dissolve in water once it's dry.
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Not SyncedAnd it's much tougher than the parchment that it was written on.
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Not SyncedAnd so before we could start imagining Archimedes,
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Not Syncedwe had to take this book apart.
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Not SyncedSo it took four years to take it off.
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Not SyncedAnd this is a rare action shot, ladies and gentlemen.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedAnother thing is that we had to get rid of all the wax,
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Not Syncedbecause this was used in the liturgical services
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Not Syncedof the Greek Orthodox Church
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Not Syncedand they'd used candle wax.
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Not SyncedAnd the candle wax was dirty,
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Not Syncedand we couldn't image through the wax.
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Not SyncedSo very carefully we had to mechanically scrape off all the wax.
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Not SyncedIt's hard to tell you exactly
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Not Syncedhow bad the condition of this book is,
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Not Syncedbut it came out in little bits very often.
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Not SyncedAnd normally in a book, you wouldn't worry about the little bits,
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Not Syncedbut these little bits might contain unique Archimedes text.
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Not SyncedSo tiny fragments
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Not Syncedwe actually managed to put back in the right place.
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Not SyncedThen, having done that, we started to image the manuscript.
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Not SyncedAnd we imaged the manuscript
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Not Syncedin 14 different wave-bands of light.
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Not SyncedBecause if you look at something in different wave-bands of light,
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Not Syncedyou see different things.
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Not SyncedAnd here is an image of a page
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Not Syncedimaged in 14 different wave-bands of light.
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Not SyncedBut none of them worked.
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Not SyncedSo what we did was we processed the images together,
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Not Syncedand we put two images into one blank screen.
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Not SyncedAnd here are two different images of the Archimedes manuscript.
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Not SyncedAnd the image on the left
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Not Syncedis the normal red image.
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Not SyncedAnd the image on the right is an ultraviolet image.
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Not SyncedAnd in the image on the right
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Not Syncedyou might be able to see some of the Archimedes writing.
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Not SyncedIf you merge them together into one digital canvas,
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Not Syncedthe parchment is brightened in both images
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Not Syncedand it comes out bright.
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Not SyncedThe prayer book is dark in both images
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Not Syncedand it comes our dark.
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Not SyncedThe Archimedes text is dark in one image and bright in another.
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Not SyncedAnd it'll come out dark but red,
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Not Syncedand then you can start to read it rather clearly.
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Not SyncedAnd that's what it looks like.
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Not SyncedNow that's a before and after image,
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Not Syncedbut you don't read the image on the screen like that.
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Not SyncedYou zoom in and you zoom in
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Not Syncedand you zoom in and you zoom in,
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Not Syncedand you can just read it now.
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Not Synced(Applause)
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Not SyncedIf you process the same two images in a different way,
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Not Syncedyou can actually get rid of the prayer book text.
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Not SyncedAnd this is terribly important.
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Not SyncedBecause the diagrams in the manuscript
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Not Syncedare the unique source for the diagrams
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Not Syncedthat Archimedes drew in the sand in the fourth century B.C.
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Not SyncedAnd there we are, I can give them to you.
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Not SyncedWith this kind of imaging --
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Not Syncedthis kind of infrared, ultraviolet, invisible light imaging --
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Not Syncedwe were never going to image through the gold ground forgeries.
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Not SyncedHow were we going to to that?
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Not SyncedWell we took the manuscript,
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Not Syncedand we decided to image it in X-ray florescence imaging.
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Not SyncedSo an X-ray comes in on the diagram on the left
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Not Syncedand it knocks out an electron from the inner shell of an atom.
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Not SyncedAnd that electron disappears.
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Not SyncedAnd as it disappears an electron form a shell farther out
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Not Syncedjumps in and takes its place.
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Not SyncedAnd when it takes its place,
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Not Syncedit sheds electromagnetic radiation.
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Not SyncedIt sheds an X-ray.
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Not SyncedAnd this X-ray is specific in its wavelength
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Not Syncedto the atom that it hits.
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Not SyncedAnd what we wanted to get
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Not Syncedwas the iron.
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Not SyncedBecause the ink was written in iron.
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Not SyncedAnd if we can map
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Not Syncedwhere this X-ray that comes out, where it comes from,
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Not Syncedwe can map all the iron on the page,
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Not Syncedand theoretically we can read the image.
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Not SyncedThe thing is that you need a very powerful light source to do this.
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Not SyncedSo we too it to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory
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Not Syncedin California,
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Not Syncedwhich is a particle accelerator.
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Not SyncedElectrons go around one way,
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Not Syncedpositrons go around the other.
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Not SyncedThey meet in the middle,
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Not Syncedand they create subatomic particles
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Not Syncedlike the [unclear] quark and the [unclear] electron.
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Not SyncedNow we weren't actually going to put Archimedes in that beam.
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Not SyncedBut as the electrons go round at the speed of light,
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Not Syncedthey shared X-rays.
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Not SyncedAnd this is the most powerful light source in the solar system.
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Not SyncedThis is called synchrotron radiation,
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Not Syncedand it's normally used to look at things
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Not Syncedlike proteins and that sort of thing.
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Not SyncedBut we wanted it to look at atoms, at iron atoms,
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Not Syncedso that we could read the page from before and after.
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Not SyncedAnd low and behold, we found that we could do it.
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Not SyncedIt took about 17 minutes to do a single page.
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Not SyncedSo what did we discover?
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Not SyncedWell one of the unique texts in Archimedes
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Not Syncedis called "The Stomachion."
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Not SyncedAnd this didn't exist in Codices A and B.
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Not SyncedAnd we knew that it involved this square.
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Not SyncedAnd this is a perfect square,
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Not Syncedand it's divided into 14 bits.
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Not SyncedBut no one knew what Archimedes was doing with these 14 bits.
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Not SyncedAnd now we think we know.
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Not SyncedHe was trying to work out
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Not Syncedhow many ways you can recombine those 14 bits
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Not Syncedand still make a perfect square.
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Not SyncedAnyone want to guess the answer?
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Not SyncedIt's 17,152 divided in 536 families.
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Not SyncedAnd the important point about this
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Not Syncedis that it's earliest study in combinatorics in mathematics.
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Not SyncedAnd combinatorics is a wonderful and interesting branch of mathematics.
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Not SyncedThe really astonishing thing though about this manuscript
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Not Syncedis that we looked at the other manuscripts
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Not Syncedthat the palimpsester had made,
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Not Syncedthe scribe had made his book out of
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Not Syncedand one of the was a manuscript containing text by Hyperides.
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Not SyncedNow Hyperides was an Athenian orator from the fourth century B.C.
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Not SyncedHe was an exact contemporary of Demosthenes.
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Not SyncedAnd in 338 B.C. he and Demosthenes together
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Not Synceddecided that they wanted to stand up
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Not Syncedto the military might of Philip of Macedon.
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Not SyncedSo Athens and Thebes went out to fight Philip of Macedon.
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Not SyncedThis was a bad idea
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Not Syncedbecause Philip of Macedon had a son called Alexander the Great,
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Not Syncedand they lost the battle of Chaeronea.
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Not SyncedAlexander the Great went on to conquer the known world;
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Not SyncedHyperides found himself on trial for treason.
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Not SyncedAnd this is the speech that he gave when he was on trial.
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Not SyncedAnd it's a great speech.
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Not Synced"Best of all," he says, "is to win.
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Not SyncedBut if you can't win,
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Not Syncedthen you should fight for a noble cause,
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Not Syncedbecause then you'll be remembered.
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Not SyncedConsider the Spartans.
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Not SyncedThey won enumerable victories,
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Not Syncedbut no one remembers what they are
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Not Syncedbecause they were all fought for selfish ends.
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Not SyncedThe won battle that the Spartans fought that everybody remembers
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Not Syncedis the the battle of Thermopylae
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Not Syncedwhere they were butchered to a man,
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Not Syncedbut fought for the freedom of Greece."
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Not SyncedIt was such a great speech
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Not Syncedthat the Athenian law courts let him off.
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Not SyncedHe lived for another 10 years,
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Not Syncedthen the Macedonian faction caught up with him.
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Not SyncedThey cut out his tongue in mockery of his oratory,
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Not Syncedand no one knows what they did with his body.
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Not SyncedSo this is the discovery of a lost voice from antiquity,
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Not Syncedspeaking to us, not from the grave,
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Not Syncedbecause his grave doesn't exist,
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Not Syncedbut from the Athenian law courts.
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Not SyncedNow I should say at this point
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Not Syncedthat normally when you're looking
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Not Syncedat Medieval manuscripts that have been scraped off,
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Not Syncedyou don't find unique texts.
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Not SyncedAnd to find two in one manuscript is really something.
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Not SyncedTo find three is completely weird.
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Not SyncedAnd we found three.
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Not SyncedAristotle's "Categories"
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Not Syncedis one of the foundational texts of Western philosophy.
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Not SyncedAnd we found a third century A.D. commentary on it,
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Not Syncedpossibly by Galen and probably by Porphyry.
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Not SyncedNow all this data that we collected,
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Not Syncedall the images, all the raw images,
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Not Syncedall the transcriptions that we made and that sort of thing
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Not Syncedhave been put online under a Creative Commons license
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Not Syncedfor anyone to use for any commercial purpose.
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Not Synced(Applause)
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Not SyncedWhy did the owner of the manuscript do this?
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Not SyncedHe did this because he understands data as well as books.
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Not SyncedNow the thing to do with books,
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Not Syncedif you want to ensure their long-term utility,
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Not Syncedis to hide them away in closets
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Not Syncedand let very few people look at them.
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Not SyncedThe thing to do with data, if you want it to survive,
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Not Syncedis to let it out and have everybody have at it
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Not Syncedwith as little control on that data as possible.
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Not SyncedAnd that's what he did.
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Not SyncedAnd institutions can learn this.
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Not SyncedBecause institutions at the moment
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Not Syncedconfine their data with copyright restrictions and that sort of thing.
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Not SyncedAnd if you want to look at Medieval manuscripts on the Web,
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Not Syncedat the moment you have to go to the National Library of WISE sites
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Not Syncedor the University Library of X's site,
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Not Syncedwhich is about the most boring way
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Not Syncedin which you can deal with digital data.
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Not SyncedWhat you want to do is to aggregate it all together.
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Not SyncedBecause the Web of the ancient manuscripts of the future
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Not Syncedisn't going to be built by institutions.
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Not SyncedIt's going to be built by users,
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Not Syncedby people who get this data together,
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Not Syncedby people who want to aggregate all sorts of maps
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Not Syncedfrom wherever they come from,
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Not Syncedall sorts of Medieval romances
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Not Syncedfrom wherever they come from,
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Not Syncedpeople who just want to curate their own glorious selection
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Not Syncedof beautiful things.
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Not SyncedAnd that is the future of the Web.
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Not SyncedAnd it's an attractive and beautiful future,
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Not Syncedif only we can make it happen.
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Not SyncedNow we at the Walters Art Museum have followed this example,
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Not Syncedand we have put up all our manuscripts on the Web
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Not Syncedfor people to enjoy --
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Not Syncedall the raw data, all the descriptions, all the metadata.
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Not Syncedunder a Creative Commons license.
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Not SyncedNow the Walters Art Museum is a small museum
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Not Syncedand it has beautiful manuscripts,
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Not Syncedbut the data is fantastic.
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Not SyncedAnd the result of this
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Not Syncedis that if you do a Google search on images right now
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Not Syncedand you type in "Illuminated manuscript Koran" for example,
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Not Synced24 of the 28 images you'll find come from my institution.
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Not Synced(Applause)
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Not SyncedNow, let's think about this for a minute.
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Not SyncedWhat's in it for the institution?
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Not SyncedThere are all sorts of things that are in it for the institution.
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Not SyncedYou can talk about the Humanities and that sort of thing,
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Not Syncedbut let's talk about selfish things.
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Not SyncedBecause what's really in it for the institution is this.
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Not SyncedNow why do people go to the Louvre?
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Not SyncedThey go to see the Mona Lisa.
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Not SyncedWhy do they go to see the Mona Lisa?
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Not SyncedBecause they already know what she looks like.
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Not SyncedAnd they know what she looks like
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Not Syncedbecause they've seen pictures of her absolutely everywhere.
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Not SyncedNow, there is no need
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Not Syncedfor these restrictions at all.
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Not SyncedAnd I think that institutions should stand up
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Not Syncedand release all their data under unrestricted licenses,
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Not Syncedand it would be a great benefit to everybody.
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Not SyncedWhy don't we just let everybody have access to this data
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Not Syncedand curate their own collection
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Not Syncedof ancient knowledge and wonderful and beautiful things
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Not Syncedand increase the beauty and the cultural significance
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Not Syncedof the internet.
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Not SyncedThank you very much indeed.
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Not Synced(Applause)
- Title:
- Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes
- Speaker:
- William Noel
- Description:
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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.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 14:53
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes | ||
RENE GUICHARDAN edited English subtitles for Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes | ||
RENE GUICHARDAN edited English subtitles for Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes | ||
RENE GUICHARDAN edited English subtitles for Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes | ||
RENE GUICHARDAN added a translation | ||
Jenny Zurawell approved English subtitles for Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes | ||
Jenny Zurawell edited English subtitles for Revealing the lost codex of Archimedes |