Archimedes (287-212 BC), who is famous for shouting ‘Eureka” (I found it), is considered one of the most brilliant thinkers of all time. The 10th-century parchment document known as the “Archimedes Palimpsest” is the unique source for two of the great Greek’s treatises. Some of the writings, hidden under gold forgeries, have recently been revealed at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation laboratory at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. An intense X-ray beam produced in a particle accelerator causes the iron in original ink, which has been partly erased and covered, to send out a fluorescence glow. A detector records the signal and a digital image showing the ancient writings is produced. Please join us in this fascinating journey of a 1,000-year-old parchment from its origin in the Mediterranean city of Constantinople to a particle accelerator in Menlo Park.

Uwe Bergmann is a Physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) whose research interest include the development and application of novel synchrotron based x-ray techniques (the name given to x-rays or light produced by electrons circulating in a storage ring at nearly the speed of light).