Archimedes in a prayer book

The good will, almost Renaissance-like philhellenism, and generosity of the rich Archimedes patron and especially the co-operation of Netz and Noel resulted in the 2007 book, The Archimedes Codex, an interesting and extremely important study about the Archimedes palimpsest and the technological trials, and they were extensive and difficult, in deciphering a manuscript in an appalling state of disintegration and appearance. For example, Abigail Quandt, a colleague of Noel at the Walters Art Museum, took four years in disassembling the folios of the manuscript. Noel documented how imaging experts and classical scholars, following the leads of Heiberg, managed to decode the hidden Archimedes text.

The Homer of mathematics

This text, still unpublished, and the known works of Archimedes as well as the writings of other Greek scientists leave little doubt the Greeks invented science and the scientific method.

This is a contested terrain because modern scientists deny the Greeks the invention of science. E.J. Dijksterhuis, Dutch professor of the history of mathematics and natural sciences and expert on Archimedes, explains the connections of modern science to Greek science this way.

Every inquiry about the sources of present-day knowledge is bound to lead ultimately to Hellas; it does so immediately where the foundation of mathematics and natural science are concerned, and in the latter case it will undoubtedly come up against Aristotle, who like no other Hellene, perhaps like no other scholar of any age, dominated the evolution of scientific thought.

Ancient Greek scholars like Polybios and Plutarch admired the mathematical insight of Archimedes, his technological innovations, and his patriotism. Plutarch was convinced that Archimedes was consumed with a passion for science, being “truly possessed by the Muses”.

Two thousand years later, Thomas L. Heath, the 19th-century British editor of Archimedes, had no doubt that Archimedes was “perhaps the greatest mathematical genius that the world has ever seen”.

In solving his geometry propositions, Archimedes brought together mathematics and physics, setting the foundations of calculus and, therefore, helping us to understand the meaning of infinity. This knowledge of measuring curves and, in general, using mathematics as a language of nature also explains the universe. Archimedes was thus instrumental for the reinvention of the sciences of the physical world, the kind of science that Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton developed.

Archimedes and the Greeks knew all about the actual infinity. Euclid, another mathematical genius who flourished around 300BCE, certainly did and, possibly, the philosopher Zeno of Elea, c.490-after 445BCE, was well acquainted with the concept of infinity.

Sometimes Greeks used infinity but, purposefully, they avoided it. The Greeks, Nets says, “were ahead of the infinity game … Archimedes was capable of producing the kind of science of physics that Galileo and Newton produced. He made the decision not to - other things occupied his mind.”

Galileo had a tremendous respect for Archimedes whose mathematical physics became the core and spark of his own science. He started studying Archimedes early on in his life. He admitted that he found “infinite astonishment” in the works of Archimedes.

In general, Archimedes measured curves, shaping calculus in the process. He invented combinatorics, counting and figuring out the number of possible solutions to a problem. This is at the core of our understanding of the theory of probability.

These, among many other great mathematical and technological achievements, form the underbelly of computer and imaging science that is, according to Netz, fundamentally, Archimedean. It was that science that, serendipitously, helped in the decipherment of the hidden and almost destroyed works of Archimedes.

In the extremely long and murky history of the survival of Greek thought, the decipherment of the Archimedes palimpsest is another victory against a ceaseless obscurantism trying to keep the Greeks buried in palimpsests. For that reason, the $2 million Mr. B spent for the Archimedes palimpsest was the best investment he ever made.

When we have a chance to read the excavated Archimedes, we will be able to appreciate reason, science and humanism even more. These are values of Hellenic culture that gave birth to Archimedes who gave birth to Western science.