Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

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The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, or Phil. Trans., is a scientific journal published by the Royal Society.

Begun in 1665, it is the oldest scientific journal printed in the English-speaking world and the second oldest in the world, after the French Journal des sçavans. It is still published, making it the world's longest running scientific journal. The use of the word "philosophical" in the title derives from the phrase "natural philosophy", which was the equivalent of what we would now generically call "science".

Contents 1 History 2 Current publication 3 Footnotes 4 Free issues now available 5 See also 6 External links

[edit] History

The first issue, dated 6 March 1665, was edited and published by the society's secretary, Henry Oldenburg, some six years after the Royal Society had been founded.^[1] Over the centuries, many important scientific discoveries have been published in the Philosophical Transactions. Famous contributing authors include Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday and Charles Darwin. In 1672, the journal published Newton's first paper New Theory about Light and Colours, which can be seen as the beginning of his public scientific career.

[edit] Current publication

In 1887 the journal expanded to two separate publications, one serving the Physical Sciences: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Physical, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences and the other focusing on the life sciences: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Both journals now publish themed issues, and individual research articles are published in the sister journals Proceedings of the Royal Society.

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ History of the Journal at http://publishing.royalsociety.org/index.cfm?page=1244

[edit] Free issues now available

All content older than 12 months is available free online (back to 1997).

Phil. Trans. A:
All theme issues can be accessed here.

Phil. Trans. B:
All theme issues can be accessed here.

[edit] See also

• Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A
• Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B
• Proceedings of the Royal Society
• Journal of the Royal Society Interface
• Biology Letters
• Royal Society

[edit] External links

• Phil Trans A homepage
• Phil Trans B homepage
• Phil Trans A content
• Phil Trans B content
• Royal Society Publishing

Archive journals

• Abstracts of the Papers Communicated to the Royal Society of London archived at JSTOR (1800-1843)
• Proceedings of the Royal Society of London archived at JSTOR (1854-1905)
• Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A, Containing papers of a Mathematical and Physical Character archived at JSTOR (1905-1934)
• Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B containing papers of a biological character archived at JSTOR (1905-1934)
• Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B containing papers of a biological character archived at JSTOR (1934-1990)
• Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Vol. 50-67 (1757-77) at the Bodleian Internet Library of Early Journals