Now a historian of mathmatics professor at Stanford has combined archeology, It was chance that led Dr. Netz to his first insight into the nature The diagram involved 14 pieces, and the word "multitude" seemed "This is part of the reason people didn’t see what it was about," Dr. "People assumed there wasn’t any combinatorics in antiquity," he from the Is it a children’s game? Is it an obscure orgami design? Is it some sort of Ancient Greek Rubik’s Cube? For centuries, Archimedes treatise called the Stomachion, only fragments of which survive, has fascinated, well, people who are fascinated by … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/Grid2.gif\")
Is
\n it a children’s game? Is it an obscure orgami design? Is it some sort
\n of Ancient Greek Rubik’s Cube? For centuries, Archimedes treatise called
\n the Stomachion, only fragments of which survive, has fascinated, well,
\n people who are fascinated by ancient Greek mathmatical mysteries.<\/p>\n
\n manuscript restoration and mathmatical thoerizing to finally figure
\n out what the old
\n guy was after. Turns out the Stomachion was all about inventing "combinatorics",
\n the next practicioner of which wouldn’t take up the cause for almost 2200
\n years….<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n
\n of the Stomachion. Last August, he says, just as he was about to start
\n transcribing one of the manuscript pages, he got a gift in the mail,
\n a blue cut-glass model of a Stomachion puzzle. It was made by a retired
\n businessman from California who found Dr. Netz on the Internet as a renowned
\n Archimedes scholar. Looking at the model, Dr. Netz realized that a diagram
\n on the page he was transcribing was actually a rearrangement of the pieces
\n of the Stomachion puzzle. Suddenly, he understood what Archimedes was
\n getting at.<\/p>\n
\n to be associated with it. Mr. Heiberg and those who followed him thought
\n this meant that you could get many figures by rearranging the pieces.<\/p>\n
\n Netz said. But the old interpretation seemed trivial, hardly worth Archimedes’
\n time. As he examined the manuscript pages, piecing together their text,
\n he realized that what Archimedes was really asking seemed to be, "How
\n many ways can you put the pieces together to make a square?" That
\n question, Dr. Netz said, "has mathematical meaning."<\/p>\n
\n went on. "So it didn’t trigger the observation when Archimedes says
\n there are many arrangements and he will calculate them. But that’s what
\n Archimedes did; his introductions are always to the point."<\/font><\/p>\n
\n New York Times<\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"