07-042
Eureka!
The scientific
community is all agog over the recent discovery of a book over 1000 years old
of the writings of the legendary Greek scientist and mathematician
Archimedes. The boys and girls in lab
coats carried on so much they left a light on and the bottle of beer was almost
empty.
A team of
translation experts have been brought together to examine this ancient treatise
and nothing gets that crowd giddy like getting their hands on something old and
brittle. (Including my Grandma Mimi who can’t stop smiling.)
Dr. Nathaniel
Hipnot, spokesman for the translating team, glowed as he said, “The translation
is in its early stages and much of the writings are indecipherable due to age,
mishandling and it being Greek to me.”
(For those of you who say scientists have no sense of humor? – that just about clinches it.)
The Doctor adds,
“But what we have so far has us very enthused.”
Here is a sampling
of the translations that have been released to date.
Archimedes writes of
his mathematical equations:
“6 x 4 + 8 =
32. Wanna bet!?”
“If you drank 4
glasses of wine and your neighbor drank 6 glasses of your wine - how rude is that?”
“Perfect squares are
the squares of the whole numbers – 4, 9, 16, 25, etc…… Not that anyone gives a damn!”
The genesis of his
famous “Claw” invention has been found in these pages.
“Object: To lift and move large and heavy objects.
Principle: Distribute the weight evenly with a counter
weight to provide ample torque.
Practices: Move ships, large war machines and my sister
Pudge who has let herself go.”
His mixing of
science and mysticism:
“I find if you skip
a stone on top of the water and it skips 2 times it shows a clear mind and a
long life.
If it skips 3 times
it shows a clear mind and a long, wealthy life.
If it skips 4 times
it shows a good arm.”
Archimedes also
writes of his infamous naked run through the streets of Syracuse.
“Went to the store
today but forgot my list, money, the way and clothing.”
Dr. Hipnot leaves us
with this, “More translations will be out at a date to be determined. We need to be careful with the release as
too many translations too soon would be a bit too much for my fellow
scientists.”
To paraphrase a
dying leader, “Me tu, Doctor, me tu.”