Scientists use light that is '10 billion times brighter' than the Sun to read a thousand-year-old scroll

The scientists got their scrolls last October and are expected to read them in six months. So in about 2 months, we will know what the old scroll was written.

Scientists from the University of Kentucky say they are perfecting the technique of using machines to read the contents of a 2,000-year-old scroll. The research leader, Professor W. Brent Seales, who is also the head of the University of Kentucky's Digital Restoration Steering Committee, told CNN that they had used the power of the synchrotron to read the contents. Use ancient paper rolls. Returning from their business trip in the UK, they brought with them detailed photos of every word on the scroll.

The home of this synchrotron is called Diamond Light Source. Here, their advanced machine can propel electrons to fly at speeds close to the speed of light, and emit light 10 billion times brighter than the Sun.

The Synchrotron rotates the flow of energy ' concentrating on a laser-like point ', Professor Seales said, ' the generated light waves pass through [layers of paper] very quickly .'

The headquarters of Diamond Light Source.

What is special about this scroll that makes scientists take advantage of the 10 billion times the amount of bright light the Sun has? This was when the volcano Vesuvius erupted and engulfed Pompeii and Herculaneum in flames and smog in 79 AD, the scroll buried in the ashes.

It was believed that the scroll had something to do with Julius Caesar's birth, but the attempt to open it to read failed: the thousand-year-old scroll was too old to open, opening it in the usual way that would cause a calendar. valuable history turned into scrap paper. So researchers at the University of Kentucky had to use machines to read the contents of rolled-up papyrus several hundred layers thick.

In addition to the aforementioned 'super light', the research team led by Professor Seales also applied machine learning to clearly distinguish between ink and papyrus across hundreds of layers of stacked paper. . Mr. Seales described the effort to get materials from a synchrotron facility like Hollywood filmmakers cut images to create such effects.

Professor Seales estimates that it will take 6 months for them to successfully read the ancient scroll. It is not clear what the thousand-year text will be, maybe this is the writing pad of a literate student, but it may also be the brilliant words of an ancient sage.

' One of the important things is to know how to connect ourselves with humanity, even though the amount of time passed between the two generations is enormous. If we have tried to preserve it, then we should try to read it , '' Mr. Seales said.

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