From the Royal Society of London!
The complete archive of the Royal Society journals, including some of the most significant scientific papers ever published since 1665, is to be made freely available electronically for the first time today (14th September 2006) for a two month period.
The archive contains seminal research papers including accounts of Michael Faraday’s groundbreaking series of electrical experiments, Isaac Newton’s invention of the reflecting telescope, and the first research paper published by Stephen Hawking.
Some of the more obscure papers explore rudimentary prototypes of modern day technology. Trials proposed by Robert Boyle in 1665 hypothesize on the possibilities of blood transfusions, pondering “Whether a fierce dog stocked with the blood of a cowardly dog may not become more tame?”. A forerunner for ventilators was also discussed in a paper by Robert Hooke in 1667 entitled “An account of an experiment made by Mr. Hook [sic], of preserving animals alive by blowing through their lungs with bellows”.
The archive will be freely available online until December 2006 and, following this period, will be available as part of Royal Society journal subscription packages or alternatively on a-pay per-view basis.
Direct link to archives. Well, I know what I’m going to be doing for the next two months whenever I have a spare moment. :::starts singing “Geek out!” to the tune of Le Freak :::
Damn! I’ve had to run down to MIT to usde their system to get into this stuff before. There’s a lot of stuff I wanted to grab, and now I can do it from home and for free.