Standard Research Grant: A Complete Digital Edition of Newton’s Chymical Corpus

艾萨克·牛顿被许多人视为现代科学的奠基人。是牛顿揭开了引力定律的面纱，是他证明了白光实际上是一种没有改变的光谱颜色的混合物，也是他与人共同发现了今天我们称之为微积分的数学分支。然而，正是这个艾萨克·牛顿，在大约40年的时间里，在他的实验室里花费了无数的时间来阅读和测试炼金术专家的理论。牛顿对炼金术的热情给现代思维带来了严肃的问题和困惑。他追求金属变形的目的是什么，这个目标后来被现代科学怀疑了？牛顿的炼金术是对他更主流追求的极端理性主义的反应，还是以某种方式成为他整体科学计划的一部分？牛顿的炼金术实验室笔记本是否像他在光学方面的其他著作(例如，显示)一样证明了实验的严谨性？为什么牛顿坚持一项在今天看来只能以失败告终的努力，长达40年--他的实验室生产了哪些产品，可能让他相信成功就在眼前？本项目建立在过去近二十年的编辑经验的基础上，以在线、免费提供的格式完成牛顿《化学/化学》作品的电子版。由威廉·R·纽曼担任总编辑的印第安纳大学主持的艾萨克·牛顿的化学研究项目(www.chymistry.org)已经编辑了牛顿炼金术已知手稿的四分之三，并将利用这笔拨款完成这项任务。该项目还将向用户提供书目和高级搜索帮助，以及按时间顺序排序手稿的数字工具的结果。因此，最终用户将能够亲眼目睹历史上最伟大的思想家之一如何将炼金术作为发现的工具。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Isaac Newton is regarded by many as the founder of modern science. It was Newton who unveiled the laws governing gravitational attraction, who proved that white light is actually a mixture of unaltered spectral colors, and who co-discovered the branch of mathematics that today we call calculus. And yet it was the same Isaac Newton who spent countless hours in his laboratory over a period of some forty years reading and testing the theories of the alchemical adepts. Newton’s passion for alchemy raises serious questions and puzzles for the modern mind. What were his aims in pursuing the transmutation of metals, a goal that has since been discredited by modern science? Was Newton’s alchemy a reaction to the extreme rationalism of his more mainstream pursuits, or was it somehow part of his overall scientific project? Do Newton’s alchemical laboratory notebooks bear witness to the same experimental rigor as his other writings on optics, for example, display? And why did Newton persist in an endeavor that from today’s perspective could only terminate in failure, for four decades - what products did his laboratory yield that might have led him to believe that success lay around the corner? The present project builds on nearly two decades of previous editorial experience to complete the digital edition of Newton’s “chymical” (alchemical/chymical) works in an online, freely available format. The Chymistry of Isaac Newton project (www.chymistry.org) hosted by Indiana University under the general editorship of William R. Newman, has edited about three-quarters of Newton’s alchemical known alchemical manuscripts, and will complete the task with the funding provided by this grant. The project will also provide bibliographical and advanced searching aids to the user, along with the results of digital tools for ordering the manuscripts chronologically. As a result, end-users will be able to see for themselves how one of the greatest minds in history employed alchemy as a tool of discovery.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.