It speaks of the story of a man, Archimedes, of his science, mathematics and physics, of his works transmitted to the present day by many men and how, a group of people of our time managed to bring to light some of the texts of Archimedes who were thought to have disappeared.
This story can be started at any point along these last 2.300 years without losing anything of its charm.
The authors of the book, Netz and Noel, started from a Thursday of 1998 (29 October), at the auction house Christie's in New York, the day when among the many things sold there is one in particular that an unknown mystery B wins the fabulous (for us common mortals!) 2.200.000 dollars. It is a palimpsest of the 13 century AD, which ended by writing to the presbyter Ioannes Myronas the 14 April 1229.
I must admit my ignorance, before reading this book I did not know what a "palimpsest" was, I had never even thought that a parchment code could be reused and that this was quite common because the parchment was a matter expensive first.
The fact is that the object paid in 1998 the beautiful figure of 2.200.000 dollars was nothing more than a palimpsest, or a code of prayers written on parchment reused, parchment that had previously kept some parts of the most important works of Archimedes.
Netz and Noel, the first professor of classical letters at Stanford University and a leading expert in Greek mathematics and the works of Archimedes, the second director of the Special Collections Center and the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies of the University of Pennsylvania, alternate in telling each own point of view, the history of the recovery of the code.
A compelling story in every sense that sees experts from around the world, including some Italians, committed to recovering the texts of the great mathematician and that, in the course of their research that continues even today, we have had to think again about the mathematical knowledge of Archimedes, which can now be considered without a doubt a precursor of the infinitesimal calculus and of the combinatory calculus, bases of our mathematical science.
Thanks to the authors and their workmates, also from me for the merit of having contributed to the rediscovery of such a great ancient author, Archimedes!
Alessandro Rugolo
