History
The first issue, dated 6 March 1665, was edited and published by the society's first secretary, Henry Oldenburg, some six years after the Royal Society had been founded. Oldenburg published the journal at his own personal expense and seems to have entered into an agreement with the Council of the Royal Society allowing him to keep any resulting profits. He was to be disappointed, however, since the journal performed poorly from a financial point of view during Oldenburg's lifetime. Over the centuries, many important scientific discoveries have been published in the Philosophical Transactions. Famous contributing authors include Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Michael Faraday and Charles Darwin. In 1672, the journal published Newton's first paper New Theory about Light and Colours, which can be seen as the beginning of his public scientific career. The position of editor was sometimes held jointly and included William Musgrave (Nos 167 to 178) and Robert Plot (Nos 144 to 178).
In July 2011 programmer Greg Maxwell released through the The Pirate Bay, the nearly 19 thousand articles that had been published before 1923, and were therefore in the public domain. They had been digitized for the Royal Society by Jstor, for a cost of less than USD100,000, and public access to them was restricted through a paywall. In October of the same year, the Royal Society released for free all its articles prior to 1941, but denied that this decision had been influenced by Maxwell's actions.
Read more about this topic: Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)