This could open up amazing possibilities

I only read The New Yorker on the subway. Since I haven’t spent much time on the subway recently, I’ve been behind on my New Yorker reading and only just saw John Seabrook’s article, “The Invisible Library” from the November 16^th issue. In it, Seabrook discusses how digital technologies like computerized tomography, x-ray fluorescence imaging, and x-ray phase contrast XRPC) imaging are being applied to the reconstruction of the texts of badly damaged manuscripts, focusing on attempts to have a carbonized papyrus scroll excavated at Herculaneum (in the collection of the library of the Institut de France) brought to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble for XRPC examination. The scroll has not yet been “virtually unwrapped”, but if this is accomplished one day, imagine what amazing possibilities could open up.