Science Throughout the Ages

The Royal Society is celebrating its 350^th anniversary next year by posting 60 of its articles to its Trailblazing website. According to the BBC, that collection of papers, which were originally published in the society's journal Philosophical Transactions, include "a gruesome account of a 17th Century blood transfusion and the article in which Sir Isaac showed that white light is a mixture of other colours" as well as papers from Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Hawking. Another paper in the collection was a study of whether Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was truly a child prodigy. "Suggestions he was in fact a midget adult were dismissed by writer Daines Barrington on the grounds that young Wolfgang was more enthusiastic about playing with his cat than practising his harpsichord," writes the BBC.