Archimedes' infinitesimals
May. 12th, 2025 02:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nancylebovhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXNIgHov0Nk&ab_channel=BenSyversen
The rather hectic story of a manuscript copying Archimedes' letter about his "method", a socially unacceptable way of using infinitesimals to calculate areas.
The ancient Greeks didn't like them, the counter-Reformation Church didn't like them. (Let me know if that's true.) Fortunately, Newton didn't have to please the Jesuits. I feel like there's a whole conversation about gatekeeping and Damned Things* in the topic.
The text barely survived. There's one known copy, and it was bleached out for a prayer, but some of it was barely visible in the margins. A scholar copied what he could see-- recognizably lost Archimedes-- but a lot of it wasn't visible, and then the manuscript was lost and getting moldy, what with being hidden from the holocaust.
Fortunately, it was found, and modern scanning was able to recover the text. Watch the video for details of the method and animated diagrams.
*Damned Things-- Robert Anton Wilson's term for things people seriously don't want to think about
The rather hectic story of a manuscript copying Archimedes' letter about his "method", a socially unacceptable way of using infinitesimals to calculate areas.
The ancient Greeks didn't like them, the counter-Reformation Church didn't like them. (Let me know if that's true.) Fortunately, Newton didn't have to please the Jesuits. I feel like there's a whole conversation about gatekeeping and Damned Things* in the topic.
The text barely survived. There's one known copy, and it was bleached out for a prayer, but some of it was barely visible in the margins. A scholar copied what he could see-- recognizably lost Archimedes-- but a lot of it wasn't visible, and then the manuscript was lost and getting moldy, what with being hidden from the holocaust.
Fortunately, it was found, and modern scanning was able to recover the text. Watch the video for details of the method and animated diagrams.
*Damned Things-- Robert Anton Wilson's term for things people seriously don't want to think about
