Here’s another fascinating entry (link to it here) from Carl Zimmer at his blog, The Loom. He starts with a bit about the history of science, that before 1833 there were no scientists because in that year one William Whewell coined the term.
But the real gem of this blog posting is a link to the entire archive of the Royal Society of London. This group has published science journals from 1665 up to the present. The archive is open for public viewing until December, after which it will only be seen by paying subscribers. Here's the link. You need to click on Journals Digital Archive not far down the page. Then you need to register so you can log in. It costs nothing (at present) and only requires an email address.
There are some fascinating papers here. I’ve had a good time simply looking at the strange spellings and letters from the 1600’s. But there are some very significant papers from the history of science included in this archive. For example, there’s a letter concerning Ben Franklin’s experiments in electricity (click on Open Full Text in the lower right to see the whole thing).
There are letters from Leeuwenhoek describing his first viewings through his microscope. The Loom posting lists several other important articles, including Crick and Watson’s description of the form of DNA, and An Account of a Very Remarkable Young Musician (Mozart).
I encourage you to check this resource out during the next couple months while it’s available.
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