{"id":196368,"date":"2021-03-07T16:13:52","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T13:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/scientists-read-a-300-year-old-folded-letter-without-opening-it-heres-how-review-geek\/"},"modified":"2021-03-07T16:13:52","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T13:13:52","slug":"scientists-read-a-300-year-old-folded-letter-without-opening-it-heres-how-review-geek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/scientists-read-a-300-year-old-folded-letter-without-opening-it-heres-how-review-geek\/","title":{"rendered":"#Scientists Read a 300-Year-Old Folded Letter without Opening It\u2014Here\u2019s How \u2013 Review Geek"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Scientists Read a 300-Year-Old Folded Letter without Opening It\u2014Here\u2019s How \u2013 Review Geek”<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Nature Communications<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The juicy contents of a sealed 300-year-old letter<\/a> are now available for anyone to enjoy, thanks to a new algorithm that deconstructs x-rays to virtually unfold documents. Researchers at MIT developed the virtual letter-opening method to read unopened letters that, due to wax seals and intense folds, are too fragile to open today.<\/p>\n

Hold on, did I say that this letter is juicy? It\u2019s actually a bit mundane. In the letter, dated July 31st, 1697, French lawyer Jacques Sennacques asks his cousin, Pierre Le Pers, to send over a death certificate for a relative named Daniel Le Pers. Unfortunately, the letter never reached Pierre. It instead sat in a trunk nicknamed the Brienne Collection<\/a> alongside 2,600 other letters, 600 of which remain unopened.<\/p>\n

Nosy researchers can\u2019t open these unsealed letters, as they\u2019re all \u201cletterlocked.\u201d Letterlocking<\/a>, a process where you fold and seal a letter to the point that it can\u2019t be opened without getting torn, was a common trick for hundreds of years in Europe and other continents. It serves as a deterrent for snoops, who by opening a \u201clocked\u201d letter would damage it, leaving evidence that the letter was tampered with.<\/p>\n

After 300 years in a dusty French box, the letters are too fragile to \u201cunlock\u201d without causing significant damage. And even in cases where researchers could<\/em> successfully unfold a letter, doing so erases the letterlock, which is a valuable piece of history in its own right.<\/p>\n

Researchers can use this virtual \u201cunlocking\u201d method to reveal the contents of unopened letters, which are quite common given the prevalence of letters before the late-20th century. The technology<\/a> could also come in handy for researchers studying other fragile documents, like old books and scrolls.<\/p>\n

Source: Nature Communications<\/a> via New Scientist<\/a><\/small>\n<\/div>\n