Standing on the Shoulders: A Wonderful Resource

The Royal Society Digital Journal Archive, dating back to 1665 and containing more than 60,000 articles, is now available online at www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk and is FREE to access until the end of December 2006. Following this it will continue to be free as part of any of the Royal Society's new journal subscription packages.

The Royal Society Digital Archive is easily the most comprehensive archive in science and contains some of the most significant scientific papers ever published. The development of the digital archive means that the Society's online collection now contains every paper ever published in the Royal Society's journals, including the entire back catalogue of Philosophical Transactions since 1665, the longest-running international science journal in the world.

It provides a record of some key scientific discoveries from the last 340 years — some examples:

Robert Hooke, preserving animals by blowing through their lungs with bellows - 1667
Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope - 1672
Benjamin Franklin’s legendary kite experiment, drawing down lightning and showing its electrical nature - 1752
Edmund Stone’s observations on Willow bark, leading to the discovery of Aspirin - 1763
Daines Barrington’s account of a very remarkable young musician (Mozart) - 1770
Joseph Priestley's discovery of oxygen - 1775
The Method Taken for Preserving the Health of the Crew of His Majesty's Ship the Resolution during Her Late Voyage Round the World. By Captain James Cook, F. R. S. Addressed to Sir John Pringle, Bart. P. R. S.
William Hershel's discovery of Uranus - 1783
William Henry Fox Talbot’s first account of photography - 1839
Richard Owen's discovery of Archeopteryx, the earliest and most primitive known bird fossil - 1863
Thomas (TH) Huxley's Remarks upon Archaopteryx lithographica, correcting Owen & making his early reputation - 1864
Arthur Eddington’s solar eclipse observations, confirming Einstein’s general theory of relativity - 1919
Fleming's report of discovering the effect of penicillin - 1922
Crick and Watson's report of the structure of DNA - 1954

The Panglossian paradigm (via)

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