Viggen Posted May 16, 2004 Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 At the start of the 20th century, a Danish mathematical historian named Johan Ludvig Heiberg made a once-in-a-lifetime find. Tucked away in the library of a monastery in Istanbul was a medieval parchment containing copies of the works of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, including two never-before-seen essays. To mathematicians' astonishment, one of the new essays contained many of the key ideas of calculus, a subject supposedly invented two millennia after Archimedes' time. The essay caused a sensation and landed Heiberg's discovery on the front page of a 1907 New York Times. The other new essay, by contrast, mystified mathematicians. A fragment of a treatise called the Stomachion, it appeared to be nothing more than a description of a puzzle that might have been a children's toy. Mathematicians wondered why Archimedes, whose other works were so monumental, should have spent his time on something so frivolous. full article at Science News Online Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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