From: Terry W. Colvin (fortean1@mindspring.com)
Date: Fri Jun 13 2003 - 15:23:42 MDT
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previously unpublished work at a Web site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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