Leibniz's ... anticipates Google

Liebniz ... anticipates Google ...

Read this passage

Leibniz's scheme for a universal encyclopaedia required a pooling of existing knowledge, of research in hand, and of future efforts. There had already been attempts to encompass all knowledge in a single work, for example J. H. Alsted's seven-volume Encyclopaedia of 1630, which Leibniz once thought of adapting to his own purposes. But the vast bulk of current knowledge was in books scattered throughout the libraries of Europe, and he soon saw that the most feasible way of centralising access to it would be to compile a master subject-catalogue. At the time the only useful subject-catalogue in existence was that of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and Leibniz had no knowledge of it. In 1670 he produced as a model a catalogue of Boineburg's rich book collection; but despite repeated pleas, he was never allowed to do the same for any of the major libraries which were later in his charge, and only recently has his dream of the librarian as specialist in information storage and retrieval again been taken up by professional librarians.

from George MacDonald Ross' Leibniz at
The University of Leeds Electronic Text Centre

note the irony of L's missing knowledge .... not knowing about the Bodelian catalog

what do you think?

Heritage Book Shop

Heritage Book Shop is closing ... according to this LA time story ... Ben Weinstein, the owner, mentions the 1922 first edition of James Joyce's "Ulysses", an original copy of Beethoven's opera "Fidelio;", Shakespeare's Folios, an 1860s first edition of Tolstoy's "Voina i Mir" ("War and Peace"), a 1656 printing of one of Galileo's texts in Italian, a 1543 copy of Copernicus' "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres," .... pretty awesom. Though sad to see it go ...

Lou Weinstein brother-co-owner, already retired.

Happily, Ben is contributing 12,000 reference texts used to assess rare books to UCLA's William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.

Neat!! If you're looking for a particular Mauscript ... the goto guy is Ben who according to the story will "rent an office in the Pacific Design Center and serve as a "book broker,""

So ... all's not lost

HIDDEN TREASURES OF KENT

This might be of interest to the Treasure Hunters: THE HIDDEN TREASURES OF KENT -An exhibition to celebrate 150 years of the Kent Archaeological Society -- the claim "This exhibition brings together over 100 fabulous treasures representing some of the best of the county’s missing archaeology most of which have not been seen in the County since their discovery". Check it out here.

Not much in the missing manuscript department

but ... they say the have on exhibit

· Iron Age Mill Hill Crown from the British Museum ;
· Anglo-Saxon jewelled brooches from Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum ;
· Bronze Age ‘Beck Hoard’ [now at the World Museum , Liverpool]
· Iron Age slave chain from Manchester Museum . [how can they tell it was a slave chain? very puzzling ... possibly biased ...]

Are there any missing Abraxas Manuscripts?

ABRAXAS, or ABRASAX, a word engraved on certain antique stones, called on that account Abraxas stones, which were used as amulets or charms. The Basilidians, a Gnostic sect, attached importance to the word, if, indeed, they did not bring it into use. The letters of abraxas, in the Greek notation, make up the number 365, and the Basilidians gave the name to the 365 orders of spirits which, as they conceived, emanated in succession from the Supreme Being. These orders were supposed to occupy 365 heavens, each fashioned like, but inferior to that above it; and the lowest of the heavens was thought to be the abode of the spirits who formed the earth and its inhabitants, and to whom was committed the administration of its affairs. Abraxas stones are of very little value. In addition to the word Abraxas and other mystical characters, they have often cabalistic figures engraved on them. The commonest of these have the head of a fowl, and the arms and bust of a man, and terminate in the body and tail of a serpent.

More about Basilidians
and Abraxas



{from the Wiki Rendition of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abraxas entry

Papus' Treasury of Analysis and the Lost Books

According to Carl Apollonius.
Boyer's A History of Mathematics, Papus' Treasury of Analysis listed treatises by Aristaeus, Euclid, Eratosthenes,and
Conics had 487 theorems ...so the last (eigth) lost book had 105 theorems currently missing ... Cutting of a Ratio, On Means, and Porisms are all missing ... just think if we they weren't lost ... we might have already had a settlement on Mars ... maybe ... maybe not ... you never know

I am particularly intrigued by Porisms ... aren't you?

Felix Klein on Euclid

Reading Felix Klein ... he says of mathematics during the Euclid Era "Several facts have become known only quite recently in this direction. Thus it is now known that the books that have come to us from the time of Euclid constitute only a very small part of what was then in existence;"

Clearly this begs the issue of missing manuscripts ... he talks about Zeuthen and Allman as possibly having some insight into the issue .... IS there a "Black Swan" here?

Probably all missing manuscripts have an aspect of inherent 'Black Swanism" ...

Royal Society and Lost Mauscripts ...

You would think that manuscripts by Sir Isaac Newton on how turn base metals into gold wouldn't be easily lost ... and at the Royal Society ... But apparently that can happen ... However the Story has a good ending ...


Apparently ... the Lost Newton manuscript was rediscovered at Royal Society;

This is what it says: "A collection of notes by Sir Isaac Newton, thought by experts to be lost forever, have recently been rediscovered during cataloguing at the Royal Society and go on display to the public for the first time next week at the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition.

The notes are written about alchemy, which some scientists in Newton's time believed to hold the secret for transforming base metals, such as lead, into the more precious metals of gold or silver. Much of the text consists of Newton's notes on the work of another alchemist of the seventeenth century, Frenchman Pierre Jean Fabre. But one page of the notes presents a more intriguing prospect it offers what may be Newton's own thoughts on alchemy, written almost entirely in English and in his own handwriting."

there's more there ... find out more about Isaac Newton, Alchemy, Pierre Fabre, and the Royal Society

ARCHIMEDES PALIMPSEST ... another hidden treasure

So what is this ARCHIMEDES PALIMPSEST?

It contains A's books:

Equilibrium of Planes
Spiral Lines
The Measurement of the Circle
Sphere and Cylinder
On Floating Bodies
The Method of Mechanical Theorems
Stomachion


According to Jonathan Fildes of the BBC ... X-rays reveal Archimedes' secrets "A series of hidden texts written by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes are being revealed by US scientists."

Now that's a story ... of seriously missing manuscripts

more on the Palimpsests

What about all the Posthumous Manuscripts.

So ... many Philosphers and Scientists and other innovative folks were really scared to publish their writing during their lifetimes .... you know the Inky thing (Inquistion ...) ... They mostly went the Posthumous route ... so where's the rest of the Posthumous writings?

BTW do you know about Cosmography: A Posthumous Scenario for the Future of Humanity
by R. Buckminster Fuller and Kiyoshi Kuromiya?


Look for more info on:

Cosmography
Buckminster Fuller

Infinity

The Mystery of the Aleph: Mathematics, the Kabbalah, and the Search for Infinity
by Amir D. Aczel might shed some light on Ex Oriente Lux ... or maybe on the Intellectus Divinus... It is curious what befell Georg Cantor ...

and whether it had anything to do with missing manuscripts ... some of his writings have gone missing themselves ... He certainly believed they were supressed.

Das Hildebrandslied and the Willehalm Codex

Das Hildebrandslied and the Willehalm Codex --- the rest of the story ...here and here

Exlibris

Exlibris describes itself as "An Electronic News and Discussion Group for Those Interested in Rare Books, Manuscripts, Special Collections, and Librarianship in Special Collections."

one of the interesting posts regards the closing of The Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana [BAV]. According to the post ... BAV "has unexpectedly announced that after its summer break in mid-July it will remain closed for renovations until September, 2010."

so if you need to do some serious research there ... get with the program soon ... ;-)

Bowker's Books In Print

Bowker's Books in Print -- unfortunately requires a subscription - but there are catalogs like that of the Library of Congress that might help

Forbidden Books

Wiki has a good page on the vatican's list of forbidden books - Index Librorum Prohibitorum -

The are some direct lists:
Index of Prohibited Books from the Roman Office of the Inquisition, 1559

INDEX LIBRORVM PROHIBITORVM -- 1948

One wonders if the V has a list of all books written .... that would be a great help

Where are they

So we really must applaud Google for Google Books ... sharing the true treasures of humanity.

We know there are books in print ... but what about the books not in print?