The Method of Archimedes : Propositions 13 and 14

N o area of mathematics has attracted more international attention in the past decade than the Palimpsest of Archimedes. The 1998 auction at Christie’s, followed by collaborative work centered at the Walters Art Museum led to traveling museum exhibits, newspaper articles, television specials, and dozens of presentations. Mathematicians and other scholars attracted a new and significant audience. The singed, battered, faded, mildewed, damaged 10th century manuscript—the world’s oldest copy of The Method of Archimedes—sold for $2 million “under the hammer.” Mathematicians and classical scholars have long wondered just how close Archimedes (287–212 BC), a mechanical genius, had come to formulating modern calculus. The clues would surely lie in Propositions 13 and 14, if only they could be read. Though now transcribed, the content may contain copyists’ errors. In the