An ancient text of Archmides has just received a startling new interpretation:
Archimedies cound the number of ways that some strips can be rearranged into
a square, and the answer is 17,152.
The NYT article by Gina Kolata is interesting but does not fully state the problem.
The manner by which the manuscript is availible to us is quite involved and interesting. See the article for full details. The find was made by Reviel Netz, who is a featured researcher at the Archimedes Palimpset Project.
The NYT requires a login: Use "gtmath" with password "Atlanta"
Posted by lacey at December 13, 2003 10:34 PM