Dead men do tell tales...

On the subject of ancient writings having been preserved and rediscovered...

Thanks to John Lewis for tipping me off to the story of Posidippus, an ancient Greek poet whose writings were recently discovered inside the chest of an egyption mummy.

"During the second century B.C., a mummy-maker took a scroll of poetry and used it as stuffing for a corpse. The roll of papyrus remained hidden inside the mummy's chest cavity until its rediscovery in the early 1990s. Today, what was once treated like trash survives as the oldest surviving example of a Greek poetry book, as well as an important source of information about the past."

Full story...

I love this excerpt from one of the epigrams:

"Lysippus, Sikyonian sculptor, daring hand, learned artisan,your bronze statue has the look of fire in its eyes,that one you made in the form of Alexander. The Persians deserve no blame. We forgive cattle for fleeing a lion."

That's great stuff!

JK

Prayer advances Science…

The irony of the title notwithstanding, a truly amazing story follows! In recycling parchments containing ancient mathematical theorems authored by Archimedes, religious prayer writers unwittingly preserved what they thought they were erasing. My hope is that this is the tip of the iceberg as far as revealing ancient texts is concerned. So much wisdom must have been lost in a similar way it makes one wonder what treasures await to be found. Thanks god for Science!

Read on...

New technology reveals ancient math texts
By Esther Landhuis, Mercury News

It sounds like the plot of a sci-fi novel: Powerful X-ray beams are used to illuminate the long-lost theorems of ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, lifting them from faded 10th-century parchments.

In fact, it happened last week at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Using state-of-the-art circular particle accelerators called synchrotrons, the scientists shone ultra-fine light beams onto three pages of the aged texts. Tuned to a specific energy, the light caused traces of iron in the ink to fluoresce, revealing for the first time the wispy outlines of Archimedes' 2,000-year-old ideas etched onto a goatskin document known as the ``Palimpsest.''

Though much of its text has been deciphered over the years by visible or ultraviolet light, about a quarter of the 174-page document remains unread, said SLAC scientist Uwe Bergmann. Efforts have been hampered by a form of medieval recycling in which parchment pages were erased and written over, allowing the rare material to be reused -- in this case replacing mathematical theorems with prayers.

Odd circumstances brought this ancient book into the realm of modern science and engineering.
While attending a 2003 conference in Germany, Bergmann came across a magazine article that mentioned the Palimpsest and other religious texts whose ink contained iron. ``I immediately thought it would be possible to use our X-rays to image the document,'' said Bergmann, whose own research uses synchrotron X-rays to detect extremely small amounts of iron within proteins.
The intense beams -- generated by accelerating electrons around a circular track at close to the speed of light -- are used to probe the sub-microscopic world in a variety of fields, including materials science, environmental sciences and solid-state physics.

Bergmann contacted the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, which houses the Palimpsest, and convinced the curators that SLAC's X-ray system could penetrate the document's prayers to reveal Archimedes' hidden thoughts.

The team plans to read the entire text and transcribe it onto a DVD -- a process that will take several years.

``Reading the pages is very, very hard work,'' said Stanford classics and philosophy Professor Reviel Netz, who has begun decoding the Palimpsest pages analyzed at SLAC last week. ``In one of the pages, it's a word a minute, in another page, it's a word an hour.''

It may be slow going, but in a strangely satisfying way, scientists say the project has allowed science to come full circle. Much of Archimedes' ancient work -- including the creation of calculus methods -- underlies present-day science, and now -- 2,000 years later -- physicists are applying some of their most sophisticated tools to get back into the head of this legendary mathematician.
``We're like the great-great-grandchildren of his own mind,'' Bergmann said.

The minor fame of Joe Kane...

Is it my cologne??? It seems recently I have been filmed and recorded more than ever in my life.

It all started in March when I escorted a documentary film crew to one of the inactive ships here at Pearl Harbor, the USS Standley. This crew was filming a re-enactment involving the USS Ward (DD139), the ship that fired the first U.S. shots of WWII when they intercepted and sank a Japanese midget submarine trying to enter Pearl Harbor about 70 minutes prior to the Dec. 7, 1941 attack. Once we got to the ship to start filming the director insisted I looked more like the commanding officer of the Ward than any of the actors so I ended up playing the part.

Next, I was asked to record a brief statement on Clearchannel radio for military appreciation month. I heard it air on AM 830 this morning.

Then, they liked that statement so much they have asked me to return for a half-hour interview this monday, May 16 on the Mike Buck show at 4:30 p.m. local time.

Yesterday, Saturday, I was escorting Lou Reda Productions shooting video for the History Channel. They also had a two-man audio team with them recording interviews for radio broadcast to air July 3rd. They asked me about the USS Nevada Memorial and then proceeded to ask me about my military service, my time in Iraq, and what I thought about serving.

In addition to all that, the Honolulu Advertiser is doing a story on my wife, Andrea and her home business and then, after finding out I ride my bike to work sometimes, they thought I would be a good subject for their regular fitness profile column.

Is this my 15 minutes of fame? :o)

Historic 1941 flag returns to Ford Island

A piece of history returned to Ford Island in a simple pine box today. A 48-star U.S. flag flown above the Marine Barracks on Ford Island during the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack was rescued by a Marine... saved for 50 years, and finally returned to a place of honor.

To set the stage… the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 a 20-year-old Lance Corporal Aaron M. "George" Geiger heard the first shots of the attack … he recalls he "didn't even have a shirt on" but went to get his weapon after the building shook and rounds came "flying in." He recalls Corporal Young [first name unknown] asked him and some others to help post colors. Running to the flagpole, Geiger took the place of a Marine that was having trouble concentrating on the task at hand.

"All I did when I got out there -- I grabbed the lanyard and pulled the colors up," Geiger said.



After that Geiger said he didn't wait around for formalities but took cover and started shooting at the planes, which he initially thought were Chinese.

The following day he found the damaged flag in a trashcan ready to be burned along with Navy uniforms soaked in "black bunker oil." Rather than have it burned, he pulled the flag out and sent it home to his mother along with a box of clothes he was preparing to send home.

Marine Master Sergeant Geiger (retired), now in his 80’s and living in Beaufort, South Carolina, said he'd forgotten about the flag for almost 50 years until his mother died in 1990. In sorting through her belongings, the clothing and the flag were found. Master Sergeant Geiger had the 48-star flag cleaned and repaired, returning it to Hawaii in 1991 as he proudly "carried it down Kalakaua Avenue" in a parade honoring the Pearl Harbor survivors on the 50th anniversary of the attack. He presented the cherished symbol to a Marine colonel who he knew would put it on display in a small museum at the Marine Barracks at Pearl Harbor in Puller Hall.

When the Marines puled out of Pearl Harbor to be consolidated at another location on the island the flag was transferred to the office of Commander Navy Region Hawaii where it remained on display in the reception area.

In 2004 Geiger asked that the flag be transferred to the National Park Service for display at the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center.

"I want everybody that goes to Hawaii to see that a Marine donated that flag -- Aaron M. Geiger, born November 3, 1921," said Geiger. "A man in Louisiana offered me $50,000 for the flag. I wouldn't take it. I thought it'd be better to let the American people see it."

Fully aware of the flag's symbolism, Geiger noted, "When you go into battle, you're prepared. You're taught to fight. We weren't ready for what the Japanese did to us. That wasn't fair - but they didn't get me."



Navy Lieutenant Brett Lawrence, aide to Rear Admiral Mike Vitale, Commander, Navy Region Hawai'i presents the 1941 flag to Bernard Doyle, the Park Service's Chief Ranger at the USS Arizona Memorial. Photo by Joe Kane

***Much of this info comes from an article by Becky Hommon, Counsel, Commander Navy Region Hawaii.

Joe Kane
Pearl Harbor

Jihadi’s holy cow!

Here’s the story as reported in The Advisor:

Police stop cow with explosives
BABIL – Iraqi police officers discovered a cow strapped with explosives roaming a field near their Al Iman police station recently.

Police officers killed the cow and an Iraqi explosive ordnance disposal unit destroyed the munitions.
***

Okay, first of all the headline is misleading… the police did not use explosives to stop the cow… the cow, which had explosives, was stopped by the police.

Next thing, since the mission of the cow was unsuccessful the terrorists either were not able to sufficiently motivate, influence or otherwise brainwash the cow, which may be a direct indication of the cow’s character or the intelligence level of the terrorists. It could also have been a case of cold feet… um, hooves.

Thirdly, as of this report there was no word on whether the promised virgins were awaiting the cow in paradise.

On a final note: I know my attempt to make light of this event is a bit weak, but I figured I’d milk it for all it’s worth.

:o)
Joe Kane
Pearl Harbor, HI