The Book that should have rewrote History

Achimedes's Missing Manuscript: "The Method"



This is a book that could have changed the history of the world. It containts the revolutionary ideas of a genius who was centuries ahead of his time: Archimedes.

The book was lost to the world for about 2000 years, passing throught the hands of scribes, monks, forgers, and shady scholars. Yet no one seem to know the book's true value until it surfaced at auction in 1998.

Archimedes pioneered the use of infinitesimals, showing how by cutting (or dividing) a figure in an infinite number of infinitely small parts could be used to determine its area or volume. The ancient theorems found in the manuscript is probably the oldest and most authentic copy of Archimedes' major works to survive, and contains transcriptions of his writing on geometry and physics.

The manuscript also contains the text of his works “On The Measurement of the Circle”, “On the Sphere and the Cylinder”, “On Spiral Lines”, “On Floating Bodies”, and “On the Equilibrium of Planes”.

The Age of Ignorance

As writing material was expensive, it was usual practice to washed off the original text so that the parchment could be reused. Archimedes's original text was likely erased in the 12th or early 13th century when the parchment was reused to make a Church prayerbook.



Religious text were written over important mathematical theorems. It was because of this act, the greatest knowledge of Greek mathematics was hidden from the world for centuries. The book's re-discovery at the 1998 Christie's auction was merely a small portion of Archimedes's original work. Sadly, the rest of the manuscript was already lost.

Personal thoughts



Archimedes was working on the basis of Calculus, more than a 1000 years before Sir Isaac Newton had developed it in the 17th century. Archimedes's work on a "early Calculus" system was recorded in the missing manuscript.

Almost all of the world's knowledge in engineering, technology and science requires mathematics, especially calculus such as Integrals and Differentials. Imagine if the Achimedes's manuscript was not lost over a 1000 years ago, the world would have a very different place today. Everthing from satellites, computers, gravity to navigation, construction, etc. would have been invented much earlier.

More info:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/palimpsest.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,490219,00.html