from Hacker News

Digitized minutes of Royal Society meetings taken between 1686 and 1711

by gruseom on 1/28/19, 8:59 PM with 44 comments

  • by benbreen on 1/28/19, 9:22 PM

    This is great news. I'm a historian and have gone to the Royal Society archives to read these draft minutes in the past (I was looking for references to experiments involving psychoactive drugs on one research trip, and on another I was researching the Royal Society's run-in with the infamous impostor George Psalmanazar).

    Happy to answer questions about the meeting minutes or their historical significance if anyone is interested. Hans Sloane is pretty fascinating in his own right and was recently the subject of a biography: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737334

  • by gerdesj on 1/28/19, 10:46 PM

    This is absolutely fascinating. There is a handy transliteration available by clicking on the sheet of paper icon. Some bloke called Mr Hook gets around a bit in the 1680s at least:

    Mr Hook gave an account of the book recommended to him affirming that the Author had well determined the problem of the pressure of a body upon an enclined plain; the second part about the separation of the gall in the Liver to which he could not so readily asset Mr Hook affirmed that the manner of evacuating Damps at Leige is after the manner of the engine for consuming smoke (17 Nov 1686) At that time (~November 1686) body preservation is a pretty hot topic, interspersed with say Mr Hook Shewed to the Satisfaction of the Company the Shells in & on the Nautilus

    This is a window on the past that is absolutely priceless. The minutes are terse and have the feel of being hastily scribbled at times but that adds to their charm. You keep on finding gems:

    the Magnitudes et cet of London and Paris; - so et cet is perhaps the original abbreviation of et cetera, before the modern etc. etc is very much a feature in modern English usage and to see it in use back in the 1680s shows a pretty deep continuity within some aspects of English (yes, I know it is really Latin).

    Smashing.

  • by hypochondria on 1/28/19, 10:10 PM

    Is there a version that lets you look at the pages without forcing you to use that disastrously slow Turning the Pages application? The page turning animates like a tortoise crawling through molasses under a strobe light.

  • by webaholic on 1/28/19, 9:23 PM

    Is it only me? I think I lost the ability to read cursive handwriting. I tried reading a few pages, and it is really hard for me to follow what is written.

  • by kakkun on 1/29/19, 12:47 AM

    For those that are interested in what else the Royal Society archives hold, I wholly recommend the Objectivity YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtwKon9qMt5YLVgQt1tvJKg) created by Brady Haran (of Periodic Videos, Numberphile, Computerphile, etc.)

  • by corey_moncure on 1/29/19, 1:54 AM

    It looks like even the brightest scientific minds of the past forgot to increment the year after January 1. Even as late as March and April in some years.

  • by jonmc12 on 1/28/19, 11:27 PM

    The book, "The Fellowship", references these meeting minutes, along with other research from this period in time: https://www.amazon.com/Fellowship-Gilbert-Newton-Scientific-...

  • by _emacsomancer_ on 1/29/19, 12:06 AM

    Unfortunately not early enough to have covered Margaret 'Mad Madge' Cavendish's [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Cavendish,_Duchess_of...] attendance in 1667.