THE METHOD

Few days back I happened to came across a mysterious story, about a lost book of Archimedes;
Well, thought it might be interesting..

"This thirteenth century prayer book contains erased texts that were written several centuries earlier still. These erased texts include two treatises by Archimedes that can be found nowhere else, The Method and Stomachion. The manuscript sold at auction to a private collector on the 29th October 1998."

'Under-text' of the recycled parchment was identified as the work of Archimedes. I was taken by owe as they were uncovering the underline text after two layers of text. After decrypting this text they find unbelievable geometrical discoveries achieved by this great man who lived 2000 years ago. These include the approximation of 'pi' and finding the volume of a sphere and the roots of the modern calculus techniques and the concept of infinity. This text referred as 'the method' shows you how to think, not just the facts itself. Basis off almost all sciences known to mankind is bolstered on mathematics.Wonder how today would have looked like if these discoveries were known 100 or even 10 years before they were known??



If anyone is interested, you can find about the palimpsest here.
http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/

Books on the net
http://math.nyu.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/Books/ArchimedesInternet.html

Read 'The Method'online
http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924005730563#page/n5/mode/2up

If - a poem by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!