Internet and Culture: Sir Isaac Newton’s manuscripts go online

Sir Isaac Newton’s manuscripts about momentous discovery of laws of motion and gravity and notebooks in which he worked out the theories on which much classical science is based, along with other historical works by the great scientist have been put online by Cambridge University on its new digital library website.

Cambridge University today published more than 4,000 pages of Newton's most important works on a new digital library website. They include the scientist's own annotated copy of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica - and handwritten notes where some of his most famous theories first came to life. First published in July 1687, “Principia” not only contains the law of motion, but also Newton's law of universal gravitation. It is widely regarded as one of the most significant works in the history of science.

As well as Principia and Newton's college notebooks, the Newton Papers section of the online library contains his "Waste Book" - a very large notebook Newton inherited from his stepfather and filled with notes and calculations when he was forced to leave his studies in Cambridge during the Great Plague. Scholars believe it helped Newton to make significant breakthroughs in the field of calculus.

Work on the Cambridge Digital Library began in 2010 with the Newton collection being photographed during last summer. Up to 200 pages were captured each day, although major conservation work had to be carried out on several manuscripts and notebooks before they could be digitised.

Over the next few months the university library will upload over 8, 000 more pages, making almost the whole of its Newton collection available for anyone to view and download.

However not all of Newton's peers would have approved of the work being shared so openly. Several manuscripts contain the words 'not fit to be printed' hand-written by Royal Society Fellow Thomas Pellet, who was asked to go through Newton's papers after his death and decide which ones should be published.

The Cambridge University also aims to upload works by other famous scientists from Darwin to Ernest Rutherford. Later the Digital Library will incorporate other collections including the archive of the Board of Longitude.