FWD (SK) NYTimes.com Article: Word for Word on the Web, Isaac Newton's Secret Musings

From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Fri Jun 13 2003 - 15:23:42 MDT

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    Word for Word on the Web, Isaac Newton's Secret Musings

    June 12, 2003
    By PETER DIZIKES

    JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES called them "fascinating" and read them
    in taxis. Albert Einstein called them "unique treasures.''
    But for roughly 300 years, just a handful of people had
    ever seen Isaac Newton's voluminous writings on alchemy and
    theology. Now that is changing, thanks to a group of
    scholars who are making them available on the Internet.

    The Newton Project, a joint effort based at the University
    of London, aims gradually to post all of the scientist's
    previously unpublished work at a Web site
    (< http://www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk >), including thousands of pages
    of alchemical and theological writings and, eventually,
    some of his optical studies. The material, which may take
    15 to 20 years to finish transcribing, will be accompanied
    by high-resolution images of the manuscripts.

    The enterprise was founded in 1998 by a small group of
    Newton scholars who had grown tired of seeing the complete
    writings of other important thinkers published only as
    expensive multivolume editions that would invariably
    languish in a few academic libraries.

    "In these projects in the past, you've got scholars who
    produce very high-quality printed texts for about three
    people," said Rob Iliffe, a historian at the University of
    London and a co-founder of the project. "Ordinary people
    who've funded these things, taxpayers, don't have access."

    For the Newton Project, said Dr. Iliffe, "My image was of
    something that would be available to anybody with a
    computer - an 8-year-old kid, an intelligent lay reader, a
    university scholar."

    But Newton is famous for his work in physics and
    mathematics. Why publish his thoughts about religion or
    alchemy?

    "Newton did not compartmentalize himself," said Mordechai
    Feingold, a historian of science at the California
    Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., who is an
    adviser to the project and the curator of an exhibition on
    Newton's influence that is to open at the New York Public
    Library next year. "To understand the man himself, we must
    understand the various facets of his own activities."

    Other Newton scholars, while intrigued, are taking a
    wait-and-see approach. "The question is how much light it
    will shed on Newton and the emergence of Newtonian
    science," said Alan Shapiro, a historian of science at the
    University of Minnesota.

    But George E. Smith, a philosopher of science at Tufts
    University in Medford, Mass., said there was no clear
    distinction in Newton's time between chemistry and alchemy
    and that he expected the papers to reveal much about
    17th-century science. "He did a huge amount of chemistry,"
    he said. "It's a broad form of investigation characteristic
    of the time. No one has really worked through those
    manuscripts in any detail."

    Newton spent years studying alchemy, using furnaces in his
    Cambridge rooms to conduct experiments. He wrote thousands
    of pages in his notebooks about religion but kept his views
    almost completely secret. Although loyal to the Church of
    England, he feared that his anti-trinitarian beliefs - he
    thought that regarding Christ as God was a sin - would
    destroy his career.

    Enhancing the mystery in this side of Newton, the
    alchemical and theological papers remained in private hands
    from Newton's death in 1727 until they were sold at a
    Sotheby's auction in London in 1936. Among the buyers was
    Keynes, the legendary Cambridge economist and monetary
    expert, who scooped up the bulk of the alchemical writings
    chiefly to save them.

    Keynes then donated his holdings to Kings College,
    Cambridge, though not before studying Newton in his spare
    time. "There are stories that Keynes read these things in
    taxis going from one Treasury meeting to the next," Dr.
    Iliffe said.

    Many of Newton's theological writings were purchased from
    Sotheby's by Abraham Yahuda, an iconoclastic scholar who
    enlisted the services of Einstein, a close friend, in an
    effort to resell them. Despite letters from Einstein
    vouching for the papers' importance, several prominent
    American universities are said to have declined to acquire
    the collection, which wound up in a Jerusalem archive. In
    all, nearly 40 libraries, from Jerusalem to Geneva to Los
    Angeles, now own portions of Newton's work; bits of it have
    circulated on microfilm.

    Over all, an estimated 2.7 million words are to be
    transcribed from Newton's small, right-slanting handwriting
    on pages littered with crossed-out words, revisions and
    equations.

    A zoom tool at the Web site can be used to magnify the
    scanned images of Newton's original manuscripts, making it
    easier for users to read them. The site is adding a search
    engine this year so that readers can find recurring topics
    in the sprawl of Newton's work. Web publishing also gives
    the project the ability to incorporate scholarly revisions
    and commentaries nearly instantly.

    With people perusing the works on the Internet, Dr. Iliffe
    said, the Newton Project can also receive valuable
    assistance from around the globe. "People who are
    interested can write to us and say, 'Look, we've discovered
    a mistake in your transcriptions,' " he said. "There is a
    sense in which end-users can become part of the authorial
    team."

    In the meantime, the project's scholars face new
    challenges. Their main financing, a five-year British
    government grant, expires in 2004. Another concern is
    ensuring that their software does not become obsolete by
    the time the project is completed. "The one deep problem
    about electronic scholarship is we don't know how it will
    be preserved in the long run," Dr. Smith said. The Newton
    Project's transcriptions are now being coded in XML, but
    members say they are wary of being derailed by changing
    standards. For this reason, they are considering an
    eventual print companion to the site.

    If the Newton Project seems like an unending effort, the
    team can always draw inspiration from the scientist
    himself. "Newton never thought anything he did was
    finished," Dr. Iliffe said. "He was constantly revising his
    work and he was never satisfied."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/12/technology/circuits/12newt.html?ex=1056478630&ei=1&en=a718c5117299a368Fri Jun 13 13:24:33 2003

    Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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