Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff L
"We were able to unwrap a number of sections from the scroll and flatten them ... Seales ... has also begun testing a new way of reading the scrolls, using a beam from a particle accelerator."
If you can flatten the scroll, you may be able to read the ink, provided you know the chemistry used.
A particle accelerator beam (or rather synchrotron radiation from the particle beam) can be tuned to excite the electrons in the shell of specific atoms (such as those in the ink), raising them to higher energy states or having them leave altogether.
When an electron in a higher state drops to fill the vacated opening below, it emits a photon of the precise different between the higher and lower states. Detectors tuned to this wavelength can catch the photons and reconstruct the original structure.
See:
http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/tip/20...archimedes.htm |
So if I understand your posting it improves the contrast between the papyrus and the ink and by so doing it enables it to be read by the eye. Neat.