Fermilab lecture looks at works of Archimedes

Fermilab Lecture Series presents "Archimedes: Ancient Writings in X-Ray Vision" by Uwe Bergmann of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center at 8 p.m. Friday.

Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 B.C.) is considered one of the most brilliant thinkers of all time, who made extraordinary contributions to mathematics, physics and engineering during the era of classical Greek civilization.

The 10th-century parchment document known as the Archimedes Palimpsest is the unique source for two of the Greek's treatises -- the Stomachion and The Method of Mechanical Theorems.

It is also the only source for "On Floating Bodies" in Greek. The privately-owned palimpsest is the subject of an integrated campaign of conservation, imaging and scholarship being undertaken at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

Much of the text has been imaged by various optical techniques, but some significant gaps remained. A breakthrough in uncovering the missing Archimedes writings has recently been achieved at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory.

Using X-ray fluorescence imaging, writings from faint traces of the partly erased iron gall ink were brought to light. The X-ray image revealed writings from some of Archimedes' most important works covered by 12th-century biblical texts and 20th-century gold forgeries.

You can learn about the journey of a 1,000-year-old parchment from its origin in the Mediterranean city of Constantinople to a particle accelerator in California when Bergmann visits Fermilab at 8 p.m. Friday.

A native of Germany, he has been a staff scientist at the Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center since 2003.

Admission is $5. Reserve tickets by calling (630) 840-ARTS (2787) weekdays between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Phone reservations are held for five working days, but will be released for sale if not paid for within that time.

On the evening of the event, the box office opens at 7 p.m. and will-call tickets can be picked up, or available tickets purchased, at that time.

Other upcoming events at Fermilab include The Tweaksters Oct. 20; Grammy Award winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra Nov. 3; "In Search of Our Universe's Missing Mass & Energy," a lecture by Dan Hooper Nov. 16; and Christine Lavin & The Mistletones Dec. 15.

For details, visit www.fnal.gov/culture/.