The birth and early days of the Philosophical Transactions

Abstract

The Royal Society was not the first scientific society, or organized academy for the promotion of science, to be founded, since it was preceded by the original Accademia del Cimento, which took its rise in 1657, but lived only ten years. The Royal Society is, then, the oldest corporate body of its kind to have enjoyed continuous existence until today. In a like way the Philosophical Transactions was not the earliest scientific periodical to come forth, since the first number of the Journal des Sçavans appeared, on 5 January 1665, two months before the first number of the Transactions . The Journal , however, while much concerned with scientific matters, including scientific books, dealt with the world of learning in general, including literary, legal and theological matters. Its pronouncements often led to stormy controversy, it had a troubled history and finally ceased to appear in 1790. The Transactions , except for a short break when it was replaced by Hooke’s Philosophical Collections , and for an interruption of three years that followed the landing of William of Orange and the flight of James II, has been published continuously from the issue of the first number dated 6 March 1664/5, the present year thus being the three hundredth anniversary of its beginning. Conspicuously connected with the first appearance of the Philosophical Transactions was Henry Oldenburg, a character very much to the fore in the early history of the Society.