Amazing - Math & History & Mystery! | The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the...

Great Subject - Better Writing Needed | The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity's Greatest ... | Reviel Netz, William Noel

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	• The Archimedes Codex: How a Medieval Prayer Book Is Revealing the True Genius of Antiquity's Greatest ... Reviel Netz, William Noel Da Capo Press, 2007 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Two Fascinating Books In One

The format chosen by the two authors of this book is that they each wrote alternating chapters. One author, a curator of manuscripts and rare books wrote the chapters mainly dealing with the nature of manuscripts and codices, the organization of the project, the objectives at hand, the logistics, the methods used, the technology, etc. The other author, a professor of ancient sciences, concentrated mainly on the reading, deciphering and mathematical interpretation of the ancient writings and their meaning in terms of what we know about Archimedes. Although alternating chapters have different focuses, they blend easily one into the other without any significant discontinuity. Both writing styles are clear, friendly and authoritative. The mathematical expositions are generally accessible, although in some cases the terminology used is more of an ancient style than what one would find in a modern mathematics textbook; as a result, some arguments are difficult to follow. I have learned much from this book: about Archimedes' accomplishments, about ancient manuscripts and codices, about methods and apparatuses used to image ancient texts and about the incredible complexity of the whole project. It is difficult to estimate which types of readers would be most interested in this book since it contains so much that could be of interest to different people, i.e., ancient and medieval history, history of mathematics, modern technology, physics, detective work, etc. But, it is likely that readers interested in any of the above subjects would enjoy it.

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Amazing - Math & History & Mystery!

I honestly never felt particularly inclined to read a book on math let alone pick one up after college - however, I do love a good mystery story. It took the brilliant work of two authors, each writing alternating chapters, to fully captivate me enough to read this wonderful book "The Archimedes Codex"! I am so glad I did; I would have missed something very special. This is not just a math book or a science book or a history book - it is a book of mysteries and so much more.

The book not only is a work of great research and details it also reaches out to grab that part of your higher self that longs for more understanding. The story about how this ancient information is saved and passed on through history and how it is discovered and restored is a most fascinating tale. The scientific and mathematical genius of Archimedes is fully evident. To be honest, as a non-math major in college, there were some parts of this book that I was not fully able to grasp the bigger meanings - but this story is presented in such a way by the authors, that this made no difference. I did understand the enormity of what these finding were.

Entertaining, yet educational and inspiring work! Reading this book actually encourages a part of me to go back to college and take a few higher math classes. This book made math exciting! This story will fully engage the reader. I think a good novelist could turn this true story into a wondrous tale; it has all the elements of a great story!

I fully recommend this FIVE STAR BOOK for all those with a curious mind and a love of real life mysteries.

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Great Subject - Better Writing Needed

There is a spectacular story here. It needed far better authors to tell it.

The authors of this work, Reviel Netz and William Noel have an absolutely spectacular subject. Literally over two thousand years in the making. As many of the other reviews have noted, this book changes what we know about the history of mathematics and science. The problem is that the writing in this book is just weak and at times pedantic. It seems to skip around from subject to subject. With such an amazing subject, they should have done so much more - or gotton someone who could. Just take a look at Mark Kurlansky's "Salt: A World History" or "Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World." Two of perhaps the most boring subjects, and yet Kurlansky makes the stories of their history come alive. Here we have opposite: a story that should leap off the page without the quality of writing needed to make it happen.

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Fascinating on many levels

To appreciate this book fully, you need to have some interest in the history of mathematics or early theoretical physics, as well as enjoy learning how a multidisciplinary team of conservationists, imaging and computer geeks, film makers, the CIA, Greek Mathematics translators all worked to unravel the mystery of a lost but rediscovered codex containing some of Archimedes' most brilliant material.

Unfortunately the Codex is a palimpsest - medieval monks scraped off the Greek from Archimedes texts and wrote prayers on it after rebinding it in the other direction.

Archimedes, Newton and Gauss are usually listed as the three greatest mathematicians (though Euler and a few others are up there as well). If you have not been exposed to Archimedes before, this book will give you an idea of why he is among the greats since he was so ahead of his own time and his results anticipate the calculus and mathematical physics.

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At a Christie?s auction in October 1998, a battered medieval manuscript sold for two million dollars to an anonymous bidder, who then turned it over to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore for further study. The manuscript was a palimpsest-a book made from an earlier codex whose script had been scraped off and the pages used again. Behind the script of the thirteenth-century monk?s prayer book, the palimpsest revealed the faint writing of a much older, tenth-century manuscript. Part archaeological detective story, part science, and part history, The Archimedes Codex tells the extraordinary story of this lost manuscript, from its tenth-century creation in Constantinople to the auction block at Christie?s, 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 b.c.-212 b.c.), the greatest mathematician of antiquity-a manuscript that revealed, for the first time, the full range of his mathematical genius, which was two thousand years ahead of modern science.

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