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Book Reviews by Niall Hodson
British Society for Literature and Science, Nov 2014
Exhibitions by Niall Hodson
Exhibition Reviews by Niall Hodson
Lectures by Niall Hodson
Invited Talks by Niall Hodson
As secretary of the early Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg exchanged thousands of letters with scie... more As secretary of the early Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg exchanged thousands of letters with scientists around the world. These letters made their way into Oldenburg’s magazine, the Philosophical Transactions, usually in his own English translation. Oldenburg translated both the language and the format of his letters: rearranging his correspondence into standardized accounts of scientific news. In doing so, he earnt himself a key position in the development of the scientific article, and modern scientific prose.
The ‘accounts’, ‘narratives’, ‘epitomes’ and ‘relations’ Oldenburg created from his correspondence have long been studied by historians of science as records of the Scientific Revolution. However they are also unique resource for the study of the communication and exchange of ideas in the early modern world. Indeed, Oldenburg envisioned the Transactions as a digest of international scientific correspondence. He did not simply translate his letters: he collated and extracted arguments and observations from them, presented translations and paraphrases within an objective editorial framework, and provided updates, challenges and corroborations.
This complex practice of exchanging, interpreting, and distributing ‘Philosophical Commerce’ also demonstrates Oldenburg’s own commitment to empiricism and the experimental scientific method, and underlines his conception of the Philosophical Transactions: as a printed manifestation of his international, multilingual, scientific correspondence, and a forum for scientific debate.
British Society for Literature and Science, Nov 2014
As secretary of the early Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg exchanged thousands of letters with scie... more As secretary of the early Royal Society, Henry Oldenburg exchanged thousands of letters with scientists around the world. These letters made their way into Oldenburg’s magazine, the Philosophical Transactions, usually in his own English translation. Oldenburg translated both the language and the format of his letters: rearranging his correspondence into standardized accounts of scientific news. In doing so, he earnt himself a key position in the development of the scientific article, and modern scientific prose.
The ‘accounts’, ‘narratives’, ‘epitomes’ and ‘relations’ Oldenburg created from his correspondence have long been studied by historians of science as records of the Scientific Revolution. However they are also unique resource for the study of the communication and exchange of ideas in the early modern world. Indeed, Oldenburg envisioned the Transactions as a digest of international scientific correspondence. He did not simply translate his letters: he collated and extracted arguments and observations from them, presented translations and paraphrases within an objective editorial framework, and provided updates, challenges and corroborations.
This complex practice of exchanging, interpreting, and distributing ‘Philosophical Commerce’ also demonstrates Oldenburg’s own commitment to empiricism and the experimental scientific method, and underlines his conception of the Philosophical Transactions: as a printed manifestation of his international, multilingual, scientific correspondence, and a forum for scientific debate.