by Playfuls Staff |
29th March 2006
Lost for more than 200 years, an important manuscript charting the birth of modern science was supposed to go on sale for more than one million pounds to a private bidder. Instead, according to a last minute deal, the manuscript will go to the Royal Society. [more]
Just before the sale at the Bonham's auction house in London began, an anonymous private bidder had decided to buy it and give it to the Royal Society, as Britain's academy of leading scientists could not afford it otherwise.
"This is great news for science and great news for Britain", said Lord Rees of Ludlow, President of the Royal Society.
The controversial manuscript is a 600-page journal belonging to the 17th-century British scientist Richard Hooke, one of those who actually helped found the Royal Society in the early 1660s, and is considered "science's missing link".
It contains comments it about his work with Isaac Newton, details of experiments conducted while he was curator at the Royal Society from 1662 and as secretary from 1677. Records confirming the first observation of microbes by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek are also present there.
"Robert Hooke was a colossal figure in the founding of modern science, and these documents represent an irreplaceable record of his contribution", Lord Rees noted.
The manuscript was found by accident in a cupboard at a private house in Hampshire, England.
