HoodedHawk

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander dug a trench about four days ago, and this image shows that the bright substance (see lower left, in shadow) has disappeared. Scientists believe that it must have been ice (presumably water) which sublimated away, as other substances such as salt do not behave like this. Woo Hoo!

Some people collect books (ahem), others cars. John Travolta has his own 707 aircraft (and another one – a Gulfstream?). He built his house in Florida with two airport terminals (he has his own runway). Must be nice! Fuel alone must be out of this world, let alone the CO2, etc. emissions such vehicles produce.

Yes, that’s a 2GB USB stick, er, stuck into a computer. And you can have your very own for only US$128.00.

Last night I went to hear Carl Hiaasen give a talk at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, DC. He is promoting his new book, “Downhill Lie“, a memoir about his foray back into the world of golf after 30 years. I’ve had his book, “Skinny Dip” on my queue for awhile, but haven’t read anything by him.

Anyway, his talk was hysterically funny, covering everything from sinking a golf cart to doing battle with rats. Monkey golf and late-night Golf Channel adventures were also covered. I recorded the talk, and I’m officially bumping his books up on my queue (meaning I may get to them this year).

[Read 1/14/2008] History/Science. 2007

The Archimedes Codex is the story of the Archimedes Palimpsest, formed when a medieval prayer book was created by taking parchment (sheepskin pages) from several ancient codexes, scraping off the old text and re-using the parchment. One of these ancient manuscripts happened to be the earliest surviving copy of Archimedes Codex C. An informative website is dedicated to the Archimedes Palimpsest.

The old prayer book/palimpsest was purchased in 1998 at auction for $2million. The new owner entrusted Noel, the curator of the Walters Museum in Baltimore, to unlock its secrets. Netz is a Stanford classicist; the two authors alternate chapters.

I was more interested in the technology used to uncover the Archimedes text than in the text itself however a majority of the book is on the text and how it contributes to our understanding of Greek mathematics (geometry, combinatorics, etc.). Only the last 20 pages focus on what caught my attention initially, namely the use of a beamline at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) to do X-ray absorption studies on the palimpsest. These studies reveal hidden text via the iron in the original Archimedes text’s ink. I’ve done X-ray absorption (EXAFS) studies myself at SLAC so I liked the tie-in.

I think Noel is either being tongue-in-cheek or is a new earth Creationist (ick!). He once says that sheepskin evolved “or was Intelligently designed” with more antibiotic properties on the side facing out. In another passage , when discussing dates in the codex, says the dates as written by the orthodox monk were from the origin of the earth – “which as everyone knows was 5500 BC”. He can’t possibly believe that the earth was created ~7000 years ago! Anyway, the Archimedes text was written ~6-900 AD, while the Prayer Book it was made into was written ~ 1200 AD.

Interestingly (and sadly), as described in the book, most of the damage and deterioration of the book took place not in the past, but in the 20th century! The book today was very brittle, moldy, and glued(!) together.