Reading the Herculaneum Papyri 

E che bella!

Well said! As an American of Italian heritage, I’m simply astounded by her ability to flawlessly convey such concepts in a second language. She is indeed extraordinary.

She is great! However, being amazed at someone who can speak more than one language is one of the most American things imaginable.

True, thought to give you some context, to us, english is a mandatory subject since elementary school and, though not everyone reaches the same level, a certain knowledge is needed for many works and things of everyday life. The scientific community speaks english so a researcher needs to be able to understand and write papers in english and partake to conferences where everyone speaks english. English is also the common language we use toward europe so every time you visit other places in europe you somewhat need it to communicate. It is pretty common for graduates to have lived abroad for a time either during university or scolarships. Also of course a lot of music we hear is in english, a lot of the internet is in english, a lot of software is in english and so on. A US or UK citizen might study Italian for passion but an Italian one has to study english if he wants to interact with the world. This is not to diminish her value but to us speaking 2 or 3 languages is very useful and somewhat common in highly educated people. I would not be surprised to discover she also speaks either french, german or spanish.

I know of two American authors who learned Italian as adults and are currently writing novels in that language -- Jhumpa Lahiri & Heddi Goodrich. It's not unheard of for Americans to learn Europeans' language, though certainly rarer than the other way around!

I like this idea!

"Be kind, please rewind." lol An old adage from the days of VHS tapes.

Unfortunately, the books of "On Nature" thus far discovered have been quite fragmentary. They have, however, been published. You can read a nice summary of current work on Epicurus (with a bibliography that includes translations and commentaries) at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: plato.stanford.edu/ENTRIES/epicurus/

@@toldinstonefootnotes Many thanks for this very useful link and bibliography! Please do many more such videos as the Vesuvius Challenge progresses!

@@toldinstonefootnotes I second @freespirit995's follow on request. The work that these scholars are doing is very important.

I interviewed him last year

Difficult and hugely expensive at the moment, but the possibility is there for a future breakthrough.

Yes, you can listen to it via Apple Podcasts

@@toldinstonefootnotes thanks. as I write this I don’t see this episode listed there.