Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society , or Phil. Trans. For short , is a scientific journal published by the British Royal Society . It is the oldest English and - after the French Journal des sçavans - the second oldest specialist journal in the world. The term philosophical here is derived from the expression natural philosophy , which was used at the time .
The first edition appeared on March 6, 1665, six years after the Royal Society was founded. Its editor was Henry Oldenburg . After Oldenburg's death, the Society's activities were briefly edited by Robert Hooke and published from 1679 to 1682 under the changed title Philosophical Collections .
In 1887 the journal was divided into two parts:
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Physical, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences , and
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences .
Today, both journals publish special issues, individual articles appear in the sister journal Proceedings of the Royal Society .
The archive of the Philosophical Transactions was digitized by JSTOR in 1999 , texts in the public domain (70 years and older) are accessible free of charge.
On July 21, 2011, it was announced that a hacktivist had posted nearly 19,000 historical, scientific documents from the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society at The Pirate Bay . He is protesting against the fact that these can only be accessed via chargeable archives, although they are in the public domain. The action is related to the arrest and prosecution of Aaron Swartz . In September 2011, JSTOR announced that it would make the public domain part of the magazine's texts publicly available.
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Royal Society: Philosophical Transactions , accessed August 25, 2011
- ^ Philosophical Collections . London 1679-1682, reprint pp. 473-551 .
- ↑ nature.com of October 26, 2011: "Royal Society frees up journal archive."
- ↑ Almost 19,000 scientific documents at The Pirate Bay at www.golem.de , accessed on July 21, 2011.
- ↑ "... there remain many people who are not affiliated with institutions who want access to the knowledge preserved in JSTOR" ( JSTOR - Free Access to Early Journal Content and Serving "Unaffiliated" Users )
Web links
- Scans of the Philosophical Transactions (1665–1886) from Royal Society Publishing
- Scans of Philosophical Transactions A (1887-2010) at Royal Society Publishing
- Scans of Philosophical Transactions B (1887-2010) at Royal Society Publishing