The "Chymistry" of Isaac Newton: A Proposal for STS 01-159 and International Digital Libraries 02-085

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

Project Abstract SES 0324310 William Newman, Indiana University "The 'Chymistry' of Isaac Newton" The "chymical" papers of Isaac Newton remain an enigma despite the pioneering studies of B.J.T. Dobbs, Richard Westfall, Karin Figala, and other scholars. Although Newton wrote about a million words--over 130 manuscripts--on the subject, only a tiny fraction of this has been examined seriously: even less has been edited. No systematic attempt has been made to determine the chronology of Newton's chymical papers, nor have his sources been examined in an exhaustive and critical manner. As a result, historians have been notoriously 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 in no position yet to determine what Newton's ultimate goals for his chymistry were, despite 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 present proposal aims to remedy these problems by means of an innovative, integrated approach of considerable intellectual merit. The PI will do research on 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 at Imperial College London). In order to facilitate our understanding of Newton's chymistry, the PI will carry out research on Newton's laboratory notebooks and manuscripts with the help of Indiana University Chemistry Department (a number of Newton's experiments have already been replicated by the research team for an upcoming NOVA-BBC joint documentary). The project for editing the chymical papers will be carried out at Indiana University under the PI's direction. The broader impacts of this project will be multiple. First, the 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 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 by The Newton Project at Imperial College, the editors will produce a web-based edition of great accessibility to the public. 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.