The Archimedes Palimpsest: Old Science Meets New Science

摘要

I'm going to give you the goat's point of view. Imagine if you will a goat grazing peacefully in the fields outside Istanbul almost exactly 1,000 years ago. It had a nice life. Then, together with about fifty other goats, it was slaughtered. It's blood was drained. It was skinned. The skin was soaked in a lime solution for about a week, then stretched on a frame and left to dry in the sun. Then the skin was scraped, and cut to size. Then it was written on with a reed pen by a scribe who used an ink of ferrous sulfate mixed in an acid solution. This is the remains of that goat. Not pretty; not surprising.