The "Chymistry" of Isaac Newton

艾萨克·牛顿的“化学”

• 批准号: 0620868
• 负责人: William Newman
• 金额: $ 36.47万
• 依托单位: Indiana University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-09-01 至 2009-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0620868&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Chymistry; Isaac; Newton

The "chymical" papers of Isaac Newton remain enigmatic despite the pioneering studies of B.J.T. Dobbs, R. Westfall, K. Figala, and others. Although Newton wrote about a million words on the subject, only a tiny fraction of this had been examined seriously and even less had been edited before the first phase of the current NSFfunded project (2003-2006). In the second phase (2006-2009), the remainder of Newton's chymical papers will be edited, and a systematic attempt will be made to determine the chronology of the manuscripts and to examine their sources in an exhaustive and critical manner. Previous historians have been unreliable in determining such basic issues as which of the manuscripts are actually Newtonian compositions as opposed to being mere transcriptions or patchwork mosaics of other authors' words. Because of these and other problems, historians are only now beginning to determine what Newton's ultimate goals for his chymistry were, despite previous strong claims that he found his concept of attractive forces there or that he saw his chymistry as part of a quest to discover the vitalistic principles that underlie the cosmos. The intellectual merit of the project will lie in rectifying these problems. The PI, William R. Newman, is researching Newton's chymistry with the goal of composing a new book on the subject, while at the same time overseeing a project to digitize Newton's chymical papers for an online edition (under the general direction of The Newton Project (www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk) at Imperial College London). In order to facilitate our understanding of Newton's chymistry, Newman will continue to carry out research on Newton's laboratory notebooks and manuscripts with the help of Cathrine Reck of the Indiana University Chemistry Department (a number of Newton's experiments have already been replicated by Newman for the recent NOVA documentary, "Newton's Dark Secrets" and for the earlier BBC production, "Newton: the Dark Heretic"). The second phase of the project for editing the chymical papers will be carried out at Indiana University under Newman's direction, with the aid of John Walsh, Associate Librarian (Digital Library Program) at Indiana University. Lawrence M. Principe of Johns Hopkins University will also collaborate on the project, as a consultant in the editing, deciphering, and annotating of Newton's manuscripts. The broader impacts of this project will be multiple. First, Newman's new study will not consider Newton's interests in alchemy merely as ancillary to his physics but will place them within the history of chemistry broadly construed, which will give a new and undistorted picture of the subject. The interest of NOVA and BBC in this project shows that the public will also be eager for the results of this research. The electronic edition will vastly aid Newman and other scholars in studying the development of Newton's chymical project, since the word-searchability of the electronic edition will provide a powerful new tool for helping to determine the relative chronology of the manuscripts by means of source criticism and related techniques. At the same time, employing sophisticated techniques of electronic editing already being implemented at Indiana University (http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/newton), the editors are producing a web-based edition of great accessibility to the public. In the second phase, the electronic edition will enable end-users to navigate through text using a search and retrieval mechanism that will link transcript in one window to an image of the autograph text in a corresponding frame. Using on-screen windows, it will be possible to manipulate the high-resolution images and juxtapose them in ways not possible with the bound originals. The advanced user interface will also allow a user to label, group, sequence, re-sequence, and annotate discrete sections of text, effectively allowing the user to create his or her own "edition." The result of this project will be a resource that is available not only to professional historians and other scholars, but to anyone with an interest in the fascinating subject of Newton's chymistry, including public schools and other institutions.

尽管B.J.T.多布斯、R. Westfall、K. Figala等人进行了开创性的研究，但艾萨克·牛顿的“化学”论文仍然是个谜。尽管牛顿在这个课题上写了大约一百万字，但其中只有一小部分被认真研究过，在目前的国家科学基金会资助项目的第一阶段（2003-2006）之前，被编辑过的就更少了。在第二阶段（2006-2009），将对牛顿剩余的化学论文进行编辑，并进行系统的尝试，以确定手稿的年表，并以详尽和批判性的方式检查其来源。以前的历史学家在确定一些基本问题上是不可靠的，比如哪些手稿实际上是牛顿的作品，而不仅仅是抄写或拼凑其他作者的文字。由于这些和其他问题，历史学家现在才开始确定牛顿的化学的最终目标是什么，尽管之前有人强烈声称他在那里发现了引力的概念，或者他把他的化学看作是探索宇宙基础的活力原理的一部分。这个项目的智力价值在于纠正这些问题。PI威廉·r·纽曼（William R. Newman）正在研究牛顿的化学，目标是撰写一本关于这一主题的新书，同时监督一个将牛顿的化学论文数字化并在线出版的项目（在伦敦帝国理工学院牛顿计划（www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk）的总体指导下）。为了促进我们对牛顿化学的理解，纽曼将在印第安纳大学化学系的凯瑟琳·雷克的帮助下，继续对牛顿的实验室笔记和手稿进行研究（纽曼已经在最近的NOVA纪录片《牛顿的黑暗秘密》和早期BBC制作的《牛顿：黑暗异端》中复制了牛顿的一些实验）。第二阶段的化学论文编辑工作将在印第安纳大学进行，由纽曼指导，印第安纳大学副馆长（数字图书馆项目）约翰·沃尔什协助。约翰霍普金斯大学（Johns Hopkins University）的劳伦斯·m·普林西比（Lawrence M. Principe）也将参与这个项目，担任牛顿手稿的编辑、破译和注释顾问。这个项目的广泛影响将是多方面的。首先，纽曼的新研究不会把牛顿对炼金术的兴趣仅仅看作是对他的物理学的辅助，而是将它们放在化学史的广泛解释中，这将为这一学科提供一幅新的、不受扭曲的画面。NOVA和BBC对这个项目的兴趣表明，公众也将渴望这项研究的结果。电子版本将极大地帮助纽曼和其他学者研究牛顿化学计划的发展，因为电子版本的单词搜索能力将提供一个强大的新工具，通过源批评和相关技术来帮助确定手稿的相对年表。与此同时，利用印第安纳大学（http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/newton）已经采用的先进的电子编辑技术，编辑们正在制作一个便于公众使用的网络版本。在第二阶段，电子版本将使最终用户能够使用搜索和检索机制浏览文本，该机制将把一个窗口中的抄本链接到相应框架中的签名文本图像。使用屏幕上的窗口，可以操纵高分辨率图像，并以与绑定的原始图像不可能的方式并置它们。高级用户界面还允许用户对文本的离散部分进行标记、分组、排序、重新排序和注释，从而有效地允许用户创建他或她自己的“版本”。这个项目的成果将成为一种资源，不仅可供专业历史学家和其他学者使用，而且可供任何对牛顿化学这一迷人主题感兴趣的人使用，包括公立学校和其他机构。