In 1999, the Walters Art Museum and a team of researchers began
a project to read the erased texts of The Archimedes
Palimpsestthe oldest surviving copy of works by the greatest
mathematical genius of antiquity. Over 12 years, many techniques
were employed by over 80 scientists and scholars in the fields
of conservation, imaging and classical studies. The exhibition
Lost and Found: The Secrets of Archimedes will tell the story of
The Archimedes Palimpsest's journey and the discovery of new
scientific, philosophical and political texts from the ancient
world. This medieval manuscript demonstrates that Archimedes
discovered the mathematics of infinity, mathematical physics and
combinatoricsa branch of mathematics used in modern computing.
This exhibition will be on view at the Walters from Oct. 16,
2011-Jan. 1, 2012. Archimedes lived in the Greek city of
Syracuse in the third century B.C. He was a brilliant
mathematician, physicist, inventor, engineer and astronomer. In
10th-century Constantinople (present day