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

艾萨克·牛顿被许多人认为是现代科学的创始人。是牛顿揭示了万有引力定律，是他证明了白光实际上是一种不变的光谱颜色的混合，是他共同发现了今天我们称之为微积分的数学分支。然而，同样是艾萨克·牛顿，在他的实验室里花了大约四十年的时间，阅读和检验炼金术专家的理论。牛顿对炼金术的热情给现代人提出了严肃的问题和困惑。他追求金属嬗变的目的是什么？这个目标后来被现代科学所质疑。牛顿的炼金术是对他主流追求的极端理性主义的一种反应，还是他整个科学计划的一部分？牛顿的炼金术实验室笔记是否与他其他关于光学的著作（例如，显示）一样，证明了同样的实验严谨性？为什么牛顿坚持了四十年的努力，从今天的角度来看，这只能以失败告终——他的实验室生产出了什么产品，可能使他相信成功就在拐角处？目前的项目建立在近二十年的编辑经验，以完成牛顿的“化学”（炼金术/化学）作品的在线数字版，免费提供的格式。艾萨克·牛顿的化学项目（www.chymistry.org）由印第安纳大学主持，由威廉·r·纽曼担任总编辑，已经编辑了大约四分之三的牛顿的炼金术手稿，并将在这笔拨款的资助下完成这项任务。该项目还将为用户提供书目和高级搜索辅助工具，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看到历史上最伟大的思想家之一是如何使用炼金术作为发现的工具的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.