该X射线的波长与其撞击的原子有一一对应的关系。
And this X-ray is specific in its wavelength to the atom that it hits.
我们希望找到的是铁原子。
And what we wanted to get was the iron.
因为墨水中含有铁。
Because the ink was written in iron.
如果我们找到X射线的出处，就能找到书页上所有的铁，理论上说，我们就看得出图片了。
And if we can map where this X-ray that comes out, where it comes from, we can map all the iron on the page, then theoretically we can read the image.
这样做需要非常强大的光源。
The thing is that you need a very powerful light source to do this.
所以我们将这本书带到了位于加州的斯坦福同步加速器辐射实验室，使用那里的粒子加速器。
So we took it to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory in California, which is a particle accelerator.
电子和正电子的旋转方向相反。
Electrons go around one way, positrons go around the other.
他们在中间相遇，生成亚原子粒子如魅夸克和轻子。
They meet in the middle, and they create subatomic particles like the charm quark and the tau lepton.
我们并没有将阿基米德的手稿置于这种光线下。
Now we weren't actually going to put Archimedes in that beam.
但是当电子以光速运转的时候，会产生X射线。
But as the electrons go round at the speed of light, they shed X-rays.
这是太阳系最强大的光源。
And this is the most powerful light source in the solar system.
叫做同步加速器辐射，常被用来观测蛋白质等物质。
This is called synchrotron radiation, and it's normally used to look at things like proteins and that sort of thing.
我们用它来观测原子，铁原子这样我们就能阅读之前，之后的文字。
But we wanted it to look at atoms, at iron atoms, so that we could read the page from before and after.
你瞧，我们确实可以做到。
And lo and behold, we found that we could do it.
阅读一页书页需要十七分钟。
It took about 17 minutes to do a single page.
我们发现了什么呢？
So what did we discover?
两部独一无二的阿基米德手稿之一是《阿基米德方块》。
Well one of the unique texts in Archimedes is called "The Stomachion."
这是手稿《A》和《B》中都没有收录的内容。
And this didn't exist in Codices A and B.
这一理论有关这个方块。
And we knew that it involved this square.
这是一个被分成十四个部分的正方形。
And this is a perfect square, and it's divided into 14 bits.
然后没有人知道阿基米德要用这十四个部分干什么。
But no one knew what Archimedes was doing with these 14 bits.
现在我们认为我们知道了。
And now we think we know.
他在研究要把这十四个部分还原成正方形有多少种方法。
He was trying to work out how many ways you can recombine those 14 bits and still make a perfect square.
想猜猜答案吗？
Anyone want to guess the answer?