Story of Newton's encounter with apple goes online

[drwayne]

LONDON – An 18th-century account of how a falling piece of fruit helped Isaac Newton develop the theory of gravity is being posted to the Web, making scans of the fragile paper manuscript widely available to the public for the first time.

Newton's encounter with an apple ranks among science's most celebrated anecdotes, and Britain's Royal Society said it was making the documents available online Monday.

Royal Society librarian Keith Moore said the apple story has managed to keep its polish in part because it packs in so much — an illustration of how modern science works, an implicit reference to the solar system and even an allusion to the Bible.

Rest of the story:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_britain_newton_s_apple

 

[starsinmyeyes44]

I read about this in today's paper. The Royal Society has made several documents available online.

Here's a link to Newton's....

http://rs.onlineculture.co.uk/silverlight/

 

[drwayne]

Cool, isn't it.

 

[starsinmyeyes44]

Cool, isn't it.

Most definitely cool!

I've been looking at the fossil one also, as I have an interest in paleontology.

I hope they will make even more documents available, in a wide range of subjects.

As I was looking at these, I was thinking that this is the best way to "preserve" these original papers. If, Heaven forbid, the actual documents were lost in a fire or just simply to age and disintegration, the online version would still be there to see.