Knowledge lost

This is a chapter written entirely by a chemist named Rhodium (with guest speaker Osmium ). Rhodium is, as far as Strike is concerned, the world s leading underground scientist. Knowledgeable in nearly every aspect of drug chemistry, this chemist has been the savior for many a person that was lost. Here he has contributed some new reactions for your reading pleasure. Radical stuff that you can bet will become the next wave of synthesis protocol. The rest of this chapter is Rhodium s voice.]... 

In a number of cases, identifications have been extremely difficult, because the materials were synthetic and knowledge of their existence had actually been lost. For example, several rather commonly encountered synthetic pigments, such as the lead-tin yellow often found in Renaissance and Baroque paintings, were originally misidentified or left unidentifiable until extensive research, including analyses of elemental composition and chemical and physical properties, and repHcation experiments, led to proper identification of the material and its manufacturing process. 

Eor many pigments, a period of time in which they had their widest use can be indicated (54,62,63). Dates of introduction are known either from documentary sources or from identification on paintings of known dates. Eor some pigments, an approximate date for the discontinuation of use can be assigned. In some cases, knowledge of the preparation process or even the very existence was lost over an appreciable time span. 

Knowledge of the quantity of plasticizer used in each appHcation together with the level of exhaust air treatment allows estimation of the level of plasticizer lost to atmosphere during these processes. 

This incident illustrates the dangers of dead-ends and the pressures developed when water is suddenly vaporized. It also shows how easily knowledge can be lost when people leave. Even if the new foreman was told to run the pump all the time or if this was written in the instructions, the reason for doing so might be forgotten, and the circulation might be stopped because it seemed unnecessary or to save electricity. 

The time evolution of the function f is thus replaced by a sequence of discrete symbols labeling the bins visited by each point of the orbit. Because of the coarse-graining of the phase space, however, detailed knowledge of the actual orbits is generally lost i.e. many different orbits may yield the same symbolic sequence. Different state-space partitionings also generally give rise to different symbolic representations. 

Godwin, Joscelyn, Athanasius Kircher. A Renaissance Man and the Quest for Lost Knowledge (London Thames and Hudson, 1979). 

The prospect of using historic herbal texts as a tool to resurrect lost traditional medicine knowledge and to identify new drugs is exciting. However, there are six significant challenges that need to be addressed to increase the efficiency of this system ... 

Ideally, when considering the level of treatment necessary to achieve sterility a knowledge of the type and total number of miciooiganisms present in a product, together with their likely response to the proposed treatment, is necessary. Without this information, however, it is usually assumed that organisms within the load are no more resistant than the reference spores or than specific resistant product isolates. In the latter case, it must be remembered that resistance may be altered or lost entirely by laboratory subculture and the resistance characteristics of the maintained strain must be regularly checked. 

Godwin, Joscelyn. Athanasius Kircher Renaissance man and the quest for lost knowledge. Thames Hudson, 1979. 96p... 

Charpentier, Louis. The mysteries of Chartres Cathedral. London Thorsons for Research into Lost Knowledge Organisation, 1972 reprint, New York Avon, 1975. 

Anderson, Flavia. The ancient secret fire from the sun. 3rd ed ed. Wellingborough Research into Lost Knowledge Organisation distributed by Thorsons, 1987. 288p. 

Jacobus, Lee A. Sudden apprehension aspects of knowledge in "Paradise Lost". The Hague Mouton, 1976. 

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