Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727). Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica, 1687.
Fondren Library intern Susan Kirby created an online exhibit featuring books from the Woodson Research Center’s History of Science book collection. Susan selected works from the collection, scanned pages, created metadata, researched the works and created the layout of the exhibit. The exhibit also includes an introduction by Dr. Albert Van Helden, Rice professor emeritus of history, who was instrumental in the acquisition of many of the books in the History of Science collection. The exhibit can be found online: http://exhibits.library.rice.edu/exhibits/show/historyscience
The History of Science collection includes important volumes of physics, mathematics, and astronomy tracing the history of science. The collection includes four rare astronomy books: Nicolaus Copernicus’ masterpiece, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (1566), which marks the dawn of modern science; Alessandro Piccolomini’s La Sfera del Mondo (1579), considered the first handbook for stargazers; Cornelius Gemma’s De Naturae Divinis Characterismis (1575) relating to the nova of 1572 and a comet in 1556; and Johannes Kepler’s Tabulae Rudolpinae (1675), the first English text of Kepler’s tables based on the laws of planetary motion.
Susan received her master’s degree in library science from Texas Woman’s University in December 2013.