350 Years of Science Online

You mean they are reacting to... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 18:17 · Score: 5, Informative

This :
https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6554331/3b85cac56a5810d4a24e13d79af58c48

?

Re:You mean they are reacting to... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 21:29 · Score: 1

Well, if they are I sure do respect, even admire their reaction! Don't sue the guy, publish it yourself - and pay for infrastructure, tools to access the stuff, etc.!
Quite commendable, really.
If they do not sue Greg Maxwell.
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by ObsessiveMathsFreak · 2011-10-25 22:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

As an academic researcher beset by paywalls, I am downloading this entire collection at the earliest opportunity. As a professional, I need free and open access to knowledge in order to do my job effectively.
Content producers can argue about threats to their livelihoods. Well, this is about my livelihood; and moreover the ability of my society to improve itself through scientific and technological development. You can depreciate my agitation if you like, but I am not going to sit around wasting time waiting for the system to change on its own, and neither should society.
If the profit motive and existing copyright regime restricts access to information, then I see no difference between it and the censorship systems of the old Soviet Union and modern China. As such I see no reason to abide by it, and every reason to circumvent it. Ironically, as those countries now do not currently respect copyrights, researchers there have better access to journal articles, books, and material now than I have ever enjoyed in my entire life (Plus ca change..?). My actions merely put me on the same level as people living in totalitarian states.
I'm looking forward to reading historical and seminal papers from the past, and I hope they will benefit my future contributions to the literature. I would encourage and implore others who have access to similar archives to make them freely available to the public at the earliest opportunity. Mankind as a whole will benefit from your altruism.

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May the Maths Be with you!
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by maxwell+demon · 2011-10-25 22:40 · Score: 1

If the profit motive and existing copyright regime restricts access to information, then I see no difference between it and the censorship systems of the old Soviet Union and modern China.
There's a very important difference: If you are the author of an article hidden behind a paywall, then you don't have to fear being put in prison or worse because of it.

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by ObsessiveMathsFreak · 2011-10-25 23:22 · Score: 2

If your institution is not properly supporting your ability to do research by providing you with sufficient library access you should probably find out what they are doing with all the grant money that you give them.
Actually, they spend quite a lot of it on access to papers. The trouble is that they cannot possibly afford complete access to all papers, which, in the digital age they should reasonably have.
The only barrier to universal, free access to academic papers for all citizens, is the copyrights granted to academic publishers. These barriers serve only to generate private profit and are thus not in the public interest. As such, the public should withdraw these copyright privileges immediately.

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May the Maths Be with you!
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by dtmos · 2011-10-26 00:05 · Score: 1

You most certainly do not need free access to this knowledge to do your job effectively any more than a mechanic requires free tools to do his job effectively.
I agree with you, but choose a different analogy next time. Every mechanic I've ever met has had to purchase his own tools.
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by Brannoncyll · 2011-10-26 03:33 · Score: 1

Very few institutes can afford to pay for back issues of all journals - they are ridiculously expensive. Back when I was doing my PhD thesis at an old and respected institute in the UK I needed access to early (1980s era) papers in Physical Review D. Unfortunately the university did not subscribe to the pre-1990 online archives for this journal due to lack of funding (they had paper copies). IIRC I downloaded it free from some Russian archive!
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by donaggie03 · 2011-10-26 04:02 · Score: 1

That's what the parent poster was saying. The mechanics have to pay for their own tools, and similarly, researchers shouldn't expect their tools (research papers) to be given to them for free.

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Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by dtmos · 2011-10-26 04:46 · Score: 1

*sigh*
Age. It has to be age.
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by tehcyder · 2011-10-26 20:13 · Score: 1

As an academic researcher beset by paywalls
As a genuine academic researcher, you could surely get access to this archive on request?

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by tehcyder · 2011-10-26 20:18 · Score: 1

These barriers serve only to generate private profit and are thus not in the public interest.
What other sort of profit is there than private profit?

Now, if you think that all property and profits should be shared communally, I would happily agree. But that's not the economic or socio-political system we have now, so it seems perverse to pick on one section of society for making a profit.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by tehcyder · 2011-10-26 20:24 · Score: 1

Very few institutes can afford to pay for back issues of all journals - they are ridiculously expensive. Back when I was doing my PhD thesis at an old and respected institute in the UK I needed access to early (1980s era) papers in Physical Review D. Unfortunately the university did not subscribe to the pre-1990 online archives for this journal due to lack of funding (they had paper copies). IIRC I downloaded it free from some Russian archive!
What's wrong with reading hard copies? People did manage to write theses before the invention of the internet and computers.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by Brannoncyll · 2011-10-27 03:20 · Score: 1

What's wrong with reading hard copies? People did manage to write theses before the invention of the internet and computers.
This is true. I could also have written my thesis on a typewriter and had to rewrite every page if I found a spelling mistake. Or perhaps I could have had a nice scholarly monk sit by my side and pen my thesis :)
When searching for relevant papers on a research topic, one typically has to skim-read sections of a large number of papers. It is far more convenient after finding a paper on a google or Spires search to just click a link and bring up the paper than having to go down to the library and delve through the stacks to find the article, only then to find that it was not relevant. Of course I could have lived in the library for 8 months while I was writing, but I find the silence oppressive - the slightest sound of a cough or shuffling of feet or papers breaks my concentration. Personally I would much rather they drop the subscription to the physical journal and just pay for the online version. I suspect very few people actually read the printed edition.
Re:You mean they are reacting to... by Gospodin · 2011-10-27 12:45 · Score: 1

I would never "depreciate your agitation", sir, and I hope you appreciate my inhibitation of the assassination of your cogitation.

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...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...

305 years? by gstrickler · 2011-10-25 18:18 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure they haven't been doing science online for 350 years yet.

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make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false

Re:305 years? by flanders_down · 2011-10-25 21:59 · Score: 1

The Royal Society has been publishing since 1655. They published papers from the earliest sorts of scientific discovery and exploration.
Re:305 years? by serviscope_minor · 2011-10-25 22:08 · Score: 2

1655
1665 (the year before the great fire).

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:305 years? by slick7 · 2011-10-26 12:23 · Score: 1

The Royal Society has been publishing since 1655. They published papers from the earliest sorts of scientific discovery and exploration.
Add to that, 300 years of the HRE refusing to accept that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe; net sum, 0 + or - 50 years, or so.

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The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.

Re:350 years? by gstrickler · 2011-10-25 18:20 · Score: 0

I wish there were an edit button on /. 350, 350, 350, 350. Ok, my fingers seem to have that pattern down now.

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make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false

when to when? by ThorGod · 2011-10-25 18:21 · Score: 1

I looked over their website, and I couldn't find the answer to this basic question...

From when to when? What's the earliest year of archives and the latest year? Surely this is a lagged version of whatever they charge for access.

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PS: I don't reply to ACs.

Re:when to when? by maxwell+demon · 2011-10-25 18:27 · Score: 2

From when is easy to answer: 1665. That's because at least one of the articles put online is from 1665, and before 1665 the journal didn't exist.

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Re:when to when? by ThorGod · 2011-10-25 18:28 · Score: 3, Informative

Answered my own question:

Delayed open access:
Articles more than 12 months old (biological sciences) and 24 months old (physical sciences) are freely available to all. This excludes the Digital Journal Archive (1665-2000).
from: http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/misc/about.xhtml

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PS: I don't reply to ACs.

Re:350 years? by maxwell+demon · 2011-10-25 18:28 · Score: 2

I wish there were an edit button on /. 350, 350, 350, 350. Ok, my fingers seem to have that pattern down now.

Yeah, that training will surely pay out as soon as you want to type the number 305. :-)

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

Royal Society, THANK YOU! by G3ckoG33k · 2011-10-25 18:35 · Score: 1

Royal Society, thank you! This is how science management should be done.

Now we have to wait for the other academies to follow their lead.

Re:Royal Society, THANK YOU! by Lotana · 2011-10-25 18:39 · Score: 1

They had 350 years to follow their lead. If they haven't done it thus far, it will never happen.
Re:Royal Society, THANK YOU! by ThorGod · 2011-10-25 18:39 · Score: 1

I think we'll see much more open access. It'd be great, since a crucial part of all academia *is* communication with the lay audience.
Who knows, maybe 50 years from now we'll have journal articles that are actually legible. >:)

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PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Re:Royal Society, THANK YOU! by Joce640k · 2011-10-25 20:40 · Score: 1

Seconded!
I've just been reading some of the early ones and it's incredible stuff...

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No sig today...
Re:Royal Society, THANK YOU! by tsa · 2011-10-25 20:58 · Score: 1

Legible as in readable for laymen? I hope not. But you know what's strange? I pay taxes so we can have universities in Holland. Those universities pay ridiculous amounts of money for all the Journals they have subscriptions to. But if I want to read any of the articles in those Journals I have to have an affiliation with the university, or I have to physically go there and download them there and then. And then I can only take them home on paper. How oldfashioned!

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-- Cheers!
Re:Royal Society, THANK YOU! by ThorGod · 2011-10-26 05:59 · Score: 1

Legible as in readable for laymen? I hope not. [...] But if I want to read any of the articles in those Journals I have to have an affiliation with the university, or I have to physically go there and download them there and then. And then I can only take them home on paper. How oldfashioned!
No, just better written. Everyone in academia has to publish and put forth a facade of being 'well read', but some articles are just soooo poorly written and/or poorly edited. If there were more people actively attempting to read academic journals, at some point the feedback *should* help produce better articles. (Just a hypothesis of mine.)
Yeah, if nothing else they could have an 'online only' reader. Load up whatever pdfs you want in their embedded reader and you can only read 'em there. It's still not ideal, but it's better than a drive, right?

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PS: I don't reply to ACs.
Re:Royal Society, THANK YOU! by tsa · 2011-10-26 06:45 · Score: 1

Indeed, that would help. Like the Kindle application on the PC.

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-- Cheers!
Re:Royal Society, THANK YOU! by tehcyder · 2011-10-26 20:30 · Score: 1

Legible as in readable for laymen? I hope not. But you know what's strange? I pay taxes so we can have universities in Holland. Those universities pay ridiculous amounts of money for all the Journals they have subscriptions to. But if I want to read any of the articles in those Journals I have to have an affiliation with the university, or I have to physically go there and download them there and then. And then I can only take them home on paper. How oldfashioned!
I pay taxes to fund the army, but I don't get to play in their tanks. Unless I'm a soldier.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Royal Society, THANK YOU! by tsa · 2011-10-26 21:06 · Score: 1

And your point is...?

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-- Cheers!

Secrets and lies by Quiet_Desperation · 2011-10-25 18:41 · Score: 2

Sadly, the subversive papers of the Royal Anti-Society are still being suppressed.

Swiftian by Whiteox · 2011-10-25 18:43 · Score: 1

Now someone go and read Dean Swift, who, in Gulliver's Travels, used reported experiments from the Royal Society by example, described in Gulliver's voyage to Laputa.

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Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!

It's about f'ing time... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-25 19:36 · Score: 0

they should have done this 350 years ago.

Re:It's about f'ing time... by maxwell+demon · 2011-10-25 21:07 · Score: 2

they should have done this 350 years ago.
Yeah, I also think they should have invented the internet 350 years ago, so they could put the papers online. :-)

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The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

Re:Articles freely available to all by TaoPhoenix · 2011-10-25 20:08 · Score: 4, Funny

That's a lot of TFA's!

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My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine

Obligatory O'Brian reference by CaptainOfSpray · 2011-10-25 20:22 · Score: 2, Funny

So, will we finally be able to read Stephen Maturin's papers?

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Re:Obligatory O'Brian reference by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 07:01 · Score: 0

Testudo aubreii? Or the anomalous phalanges of...
Re:Obligatory O'Brian reference by Kittenman · 2011-10-26 11:11 · Score: 1

Testudo aubreii? Or the anomalous phalanges of...
I'm here for you ...

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"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill

Invention of Photography by lemur3 · 2011-10-25 21:22 · Score: 1

It should be interesting to see what the actual paperwork says to account for the history of the photographic process..

Niepce got turned down on his Heliographic process in 1827... he was trying to sell the idea to the royal society.

Re:Invention of Photography by worf_mo · 2011-10-25 23:06 · Score: 1

Apparently some serious photography was available as early as 1794. (source: Baltimore Afro-American - May 11, 1794)
On a related note, I was quite surprised to find out (via the same paper) that people liked to ride through the prairie on their 8-HP transaxle lawn tractor. A 36-inch mower, no less!

Why Punctuation Matters by dtmos · 2011-10-25 21:59 · Score: 0

"350 Years of Science Online" has a different meaning than "350 Years of Science, Online".

Re:Why Punctuation Matters by MagusSlurpy · 2011-10-25 23:59 · Score: 0

At least we didn't read about helping your uncle jack off a horse. Capitalization matters, too!

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My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Re:Why Punctuation Matters by JimFive · 2011-10-27 02:51 · Score: 1

Not really, they're both wrong. These sentences no verb. Correct would be e.g. "350 Years of Science is now online." Unless you want to pretend that online is now a verb and say "350 years of science online now at www.royalacademy.uk." You don't want a comma there, either, or you would have no subject.

However, since this is a headline, more appropriate would be "350 Years of Science - Online"
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JimFive

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Please stop using the word theory when you mean hypothesis.

Of course after Greg Maxwell posted his torrent by Trax3001BBS · 2011-10-25 22:00 · Score: 1

(I always seem to post to the dead submission of a pair).

Greg Maxwell posted the torrent:
18592 scientific publications JSTOR_01_PhilTrans
http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/07/22/2254204/release-of-33gib-of-scientific-publications [slashdot.org]

Over the treatment of Aaron Swartz
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/07/19/1839237/aaron-swartz-indicted-in-attempted-piracy-of-four-million-documents [slashdot.org]

Greg Maxwell's manifesto: http://pastebin.com/kFAENbCf [pastebin.com]

Too bad the average person can't afford it. by flanders_down · 2011-10-25 22:13 · Score: 1

The subscription prices place this material well out of reach of anyone but college libraries or those who are wealthy.

Way to go, Royal Society. Spur interest, inspire the young. Yeah, that's it, hook them on science. Ha!

You sodding gits.

Re:Too bad the average person can't afford it. by dave420 · 2011-10-25 22:47 · Score: 0

Free is too expensive?
Re:Too bad the average person can't afford it. by flanders_down · 2011-10-26 02:41 · Score: 1

I see that I was mistaken. I started at the librarian tab and went to subscriptions.
Thanks for calling this to my attention. I've always wanted to be able to read some of the early natural philosophy journals.

350 Years of Silence? by cpicon92 · 2011-10-25 22:50 · Score: 0

When I first saw the headline, I wondered how somebody could stay silent on the internet for that long.

Re:350 Years of Silence? by rossdee · 2011-10-25 23:31 · Score: 2

It wouldn't be a very big file in Mp3 format...

Blooper reel? by CODiNE · 2011-10-25 23:43 · Score: 2

My favorite thing to see in old publications are some of the whack ideas and how completely obvious they were considered. Like this gem from Alexander Ross against Sir. Thomas Brown.

So may he doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated; or if beetles and wasps in cows' dung; or if butterflies, locusts, grasshoppers, shellfish, snails, eels, and such like, be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants

Lest you think I'm anti-science, it was empirical evidence that finally showed the error of such beliefs. I'm just amazed how much people take for granted even in their own area of expertise.

Also a lot of fun is the guy who believed all humans were born with tails that the midwives cut off to hide the truth from the general population. But I don't think anybody agreed with him.

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Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz

Re:Blooper reel? by Rogue+Haggis+Landing · 2011-10-26 00:42 · Score: 2

Lest you think I'm anti-science, it was empirical evidence that finally showed the error of such beliefs. I'm just amazed how much people take for granted even in their own area of expertise.
You don't have to go back nearly so far as Browne and Ross to find examples of this. My father got a PhD in physical geography in the mid 1960s, and spent a lot of time working with people in the geology department while doing so. There were several faculty (at a very respected school) who were absolutely convinced that plate tectonics was a ridiculous theory, and who loudly derided it whenever they had the chance. Now no geologist would say the same thing. When the entire Slashdot archive becomes available for neural uplinking, our post-singularity android descendants will chuckle when they read about we idiots who thought such obviously untrue things were true. Science generates provisional knowledge; today's best explanation might be proven entirely false tomorrow.

And since you brought him up, I'd like to throw in a plug for Sir Thomas Browne. Browne was doctor and a semi-amateur natural historian, but also one of the great prose stylists in the history of the English language. He wrote several great and very strange essays ("Hydrotaphia" and "Religio Medici" being the most famous ones, and the "Garden of Cyrus" the most scientific of the ones actually in print today) and was hugely influential on a small but select group of very great writers -- Coleridge, Melville, Poe, Woolf, and Borges. His syntax is even knottier than average for the 17th century, and he writes some of the longest sentences in our language. But once you get used to his style you'll be with a delightful and delightfully strange mind, who gives great insight into (among other things) the workings of a natural philosopher in the 17th century. The era was not nearly as mechanist as 20th century historians retroactively decided that it was, and Browne is an example of that. He also shows, wonderfully, how blurry the line between the amateur and the professional natural philosopher was in the era, and a little of what we've lost because of the (necessary) specialization of the scientist over the last couple of centuries.
Re:Blooper reel? by tehcyder · 2011-10-26 20:56 · Score: 1

When the entire Slashdot archive becomes available for neural uplinking, our post-singularity android descendants will chuckle
I, for one, do not welcome our post-singularity android overlords.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Good move by mapkinase · 2011-10-25 23:52 · Score: 1

It makes sense for historians of science, but for the sake of real science one need not go that far back. Once the science is in the textbook there is very little value when talking about Chargaff rules to cite http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15421335 (there is very little value even mentioning them in the first place, but that's not my point here).

It is much more important to freely open to the scientists the articles that were published tomorrow than those published 61 years ago. I pity ambitious researchers from small sci start ups begging their colleagues from academy and government for pdfs.

Download all that you want, but in my book it's called compulsive hoarding.

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I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.

Re:Good move by NikeHerc · 2011-10-27 04:26 · Score: 0

Download all that you want, but in my book it's called compulsive hoarding.

You say that like it's a bad thing...

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Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.

We've had by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 00:56 · Score: 0

Science Online for 350 years?

Comparison by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 01:05 · Score: 0

Hey, did anyone else notice the striking resemblance to Usenet when reading those early papers?
It's.....uncanny,

Amazing, but sounds fishy by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 02:20 · Score: 0

I've been told science can only progress when rockets are involved, especially when superhero A-type personality people are sitting on the tip. Therefore, there was no science before, say, 1957. So, like, um, 300 years of "science" on this mud ball? I doubt it. Only astronauts make science.

Re:Amazing, but sounds fishy by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 03:59 · Score: 0

USian? or merely listening to their propaganda?
Re:Amazing, but sounds fishy by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 07:02 · Score: 0

This is Space Nutter propaganda. They honestly believe what I wrote. They think NASA invented computers for crying out loud!

On Typesetting by tibit · 2011-10-26 02:34 · Score: 1

I always imagined those old articles to be beautifully typeset. Looking at first article in first issue of Philosophical Transactions A (from 1887) doi: 10.1098/rsta.1887.0001 (On the Luni-Solar Variations of Magnetic Declination and Horizontal Force at Bombay, and of Declination at Trevandrum), there are several tables with values set with a bunch of leading zeroes taking up most of the space (tables are full of values on the order of 10^-5 typeset like +0.000016). What a disappointment!

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A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.

Anybody else thinking of... by werepants · 2011-10-26 03:00 · Score: 1

The Baroque Cycle? That whole trilogy kind of revolves around the creation of the Royal Society - I'd love to dig through some of the first articles and see exactly what Newton, Hooke and crew were publishing right out of the gate.

Re:Anybody else thinking of... by Jerom · 2011-10-26 21:18 · Score: 1

First thing that crossed my mind. Got I loved that series.

Re:Articles freely available to all by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-26 03:52 · Score: 0

I'll be back to comment after I RTFA's as always suggested around here ;)

Interesting to review great findings! by excelsior_gr · 2011-10-26 04:33 · Score: 1

From Newton (1671)

A Letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, Professor of the Mathematicks in the University of Cambridge; containing his New Theory about Light and Colors.

7. But the most surprising and wonderful composition was that of Whiteness. There is no one sort of Rays which alone can exhibit this. 'Tis ever compounded, and to its composition are requisite all the aforesaid primary Colours, mixed in a due proportion. I have often with Admiration beheld, that all the Colours of the Prisme being made to converge, and thereby to be again mixed as they were in the light before it was Incident upon the Prisme, reproduced light, intirely and perfectly white, and not at all sensibly differing from a direct Light of the Sun, unless when the glasses, I used, were not sufficiently clear; for then they would a little incline to their colour.

Cool stuff...

The Baroque Cycle by bughunter · 2011-10-26 08:06 · Score: 1

If you aren't currently interested in the old papers of The Royal Society, then read Stephenson's Baroque Cycle... you will be.

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I can see the fnords!

Re:The Baroque Cycle by tehcyder · 2011-10-26 21:32 · Score: 1

If you aren't currently interested in the old papers of The Royal Society, then read Stephenson's Baroque Cycle... you will be.
Not really recommended unless you're a fast/speed reader. As Rossini said about Wagner, it has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

70 comments