Fortune favors the brave
July 17, 2018 7:41 PM   Subscribe

The facility, called Diamond Light Source, is one of the most powerful and sophisticated X-ray facilities in the world, used to probe everything from viruses to jet engines. On this summer afternoon, though, its epic beam will focus on a tiny crumb of papyrus that has already survived one of the most destructive forces on the planet—and 2,000 years of history. It comes from a scroll found in Herculaneum, an ancient Roman resort on the Bay of Naples, Italy, that was buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
posted by Chrysostom (7 comments total) 31 users marked this as a favorite
 
Yeah, wow!
In the meantime, Seales was chasing a new idea for reading carbon-based ink: X-ray phase-contrast tomography, a highly sensitive form of imaging that can detect subtle density changes in a material—the kind that might result from applying ink to papyrus—by measuring the changing intensity of the beam as it passes through an object. Only a large particle accelerator, though, can produce such a beam. One of the nearest was in Grenoble, in southeastern France. Seales’ initial requests for “beam time” were rejected...
posted by xammerboy at 10:15 PM on July 17, 2018


What a read!
posted by not_the_water at 10:48 PM on July 17, 2018


Truly amazing.
posted by tickingclock at 12:25 AM on July 18, 2018


On the one hand, this is really cool...but on the other, I once applied for a job at Diamond Light Source and they never even responded to me. So, mixed feelings.

I just wanted to wear a futuristic silver jumpsuit and large science goggles. Is that so wrong?
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 2:22 AM on July 18, 2018 [5 favorites]


Cool article, thanks for sharing!

I remember going on a tour of a museum's conservation department when I was young, and being told that many important items -- or at least sections of items -- are deliberately left untouched by conservators and historians, against the day when less destructive methods are invented. I was an impatient enough child that I was somewhat in awe of this idea, and it's really exciting to see methods like under development and showing promise.

Also, I met a bunch of people from Diamond at the Royal Society's Summer Exhibition a few years back, and had an absolutely fascinating conversation about the facility and the sheer breadth of the research projects that go on there. Their HR department may well suck* but the researchers I met were a great bunch.

*I don't know how typical this is but in molecular biology, from applying for PhD posts through to senior postdoc, I never once had a rejection letter or call from a UK university. I've either been contacted with an offer of an interview/job, or ghosted. Given the amount of work and sometimes travel that goes into applying and interviewing, universities not caring enough to send a simple "thanks, but not this time" note to applicants is breathtakingly rude.
posted by metaBugs at 5:53 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


This article (by Jo Marchant; name the author, folks!) is great, and I hope the technique pans out and achieves the kind of results we're all dreaming of ("a once-unimaginable treasure of lost poems by Sappho"—yes please!). I wish they'd expanded on this: "Following Mocella’s publication, however, the Institut de France refused further access to its Herculaneum scrolls." Is it just assholery (it's ours, you can't touch it!), or what's going on?
posted by languagehat at 5:53 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


The engineers and institutes and holders of the goods will come around eventually. More concern making is the site of the villa dei papiri itself. Periodically concerned amateurs and suffix laden scholars call for getting on with it, and quite rightly too. There are complications, of course, touched on here. NB this latter is thirteen years old.

Times like this I could wish to have become a billionaire just to pay off whoever insists on being paid off. In the meantime, the Friends of Herculaneum Society gets by on drips and drabs. (The water image is deliberate. Those scrolls and water are not natural friends. The villa is close to the sea, and open to the sky. The clock is ticking.)
posted by BWA at 6:42 AM on July 18, 2018 [1 favorite]


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