What's the oldest text you would consider directly relevant to your work? (as a text in a similar role a modern one would be, not as a historical artifact)
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Nothing interesting now, but oldest paper I worked through in my phd was a fluid dynamics one by Kelvin in 1864 and there were a couple of other 19th c ones. Used the results as a base for a toy model so not just reference digging.
My officemates used to take the piss and ask when I was going to reach the 20th century, but actually there was some good stuff there. People had a lot of patience for finding analytic solutions when computers weren't an option.
