Slashdot Mirror
17th Century Microscope Book Is Now Freely Readable
menno_h writes "In January 1665, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary that he stayed up till two in the morning reading a best-selling page-turner, a work that he called 'the most ingenious book I read in my life.' It was not a rousing history of English battles or a proto-bodice ripper. It was filled with images: of fleas, of bark, of the edges of razors. The book was called Micrographia. It provided the reading public with its first look at the world beyond the naked eye. Its author, Robert Hooke, belonged to a brilliant circle of natural philosophers who — among many other things — were the first in England to make serious use of microscopes as scientific instruments. They were great believers in looking at the natural world for themselves rather than relying on what ancient Greek scholars had claimed. Looking under a microscope at the thousands of facets on an insect's compound eye, they saw things at the nanoscale that Aristotle could not have dreamed of. A razor's edge became a mountain range. In the chambers of a piece of bark, Hooke saw the first evidence of cells. Micrographia is is available on Google Books now."
I wonder what he might have thought if he could see a modern microprocessor under the microscope.
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
That's far more readable, yes.
Loved this part, it really puts the work into context:
A Second thing (which was hinted to me, by the consideration of the included fluids globular form, caused by the protrusion of the ambient heterogeneous fluid) was, whether the Phænomena of gravity might not by this means be explained, by supposing the Globe of Earth, Water, and Air to be included with a fluid, heterogeneous to all and each of them, so subtil, as not only to be every where interspersed through the Air, (or rather the air through it) but to pervade the bodies of Glass, and even the closest Metals, by which means it may endeavour to detrude all earthly bodies as far from it as it can; and partly thereby, and partly by other of its properties may move them towards the Center of the Earth. Now that there is some such fluid, I could produce many Experiments and Reasons, that do seem to prove it: But because it would ask some time and room to set them down and explain them, and to consider and answer all the Objections (many whereof I foresee) that may be alledged against it; I shall at present proceed to other Queries, contenting my self to have here only given a hint of what I may say more elswhere.
People were fumbling around without a lot of the knowledge that we take for granted today, which make their advancements all the more impressive, IMO.
Yep, I don't understand why this is news, and why that book hasn't been available electronically for a long time.
Probably some jerk-publisher fraudulently claimed "coypright" on its print of it, and it took google several years until they noticed that indeed, the publisher did NOT have a copyright, and indeed, they COULD post it in its entirety. Which is, by the way, why around 80% of all public domain books google has digitized are not available in its entirety.
I wrote about it a few years ago http://seegras.discordia.ch/Blog/stealing-from-the-public-domain/ The situation hasn't changed. Google Books is still the biggest repository of public domain books with fraudulently claimed copyright.
If you're doing historical research, it's absolutely maddening how most books from the 19th century and earlier "is not available if full" because of fraudulent copyright claims -- and google reacting very slowly.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Isaac Newton was a very good scientist, and an even better politician. Actually, "ruthless" would probably be the best term to describe the man. He spent years discrediting anybody who had crossed him, frequently postmortem. You see, Isaac lived for a long time, and took the liberty to spend the last few years of his life smearing people like Hooke and Halley.
There is a reason he was chosen to head the royal mint, where he ensured that some 30 coiners ended up hung, drawn and quartered in less than a year.