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Celebrating 360 years of Philosophical Transactions

The Royal Society
Philosophical Transactions B
Authors:
Celebrating 360 years of
Philosophical Transactions
Richard Dixon1 and Helen Eaton2
1Department of Biological Sciences, BioDiscovery Institute, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA
2Senior Commissioning Editor, Philosophical Transactions B, The Royal Society, London, UK
RD,0000-0001-8393-9408
The 6th March 2025 marks the 360th anniversary of the first issue of Philosoph‐
ical Transactions, and this Editorial launches a year of celebrations. Please look
out for activities happening throughout the year to celebrate the long and
distinguished history of the Royal Society’s journals.
The longevity of the journal is remarkable and largely explained by the
important and special place it occupies in the history of science. As Thomas
Henry Huxley famously stated in 1866: ‘if all the books in the world except the
Philosophical Transactions were destroyed, it is safe to say that the foundations of
physical science would remain unshaken, and that the vast intellectual progress of
the last two centuries would be largely, although incompletely, recorded[1, p. 23].
The journals have survived many transformations since Henry Oldenburg,
Secretary of the Royal Society, decided to publish a periodical to promote
‘natural philosophy’: the introduction of peer review, the proliferation of
scientific literature and the digital revolution, to name but a few.1
Oldenburg’s first Editorial, published in March 1665 [2], stated why he
felt it important to launch the publication, and in many ways it still reflects
the objectives of publishing today: communicating and celebrating scientific
research, sharing ‘solid and useful knowledge’ and providing a basis for
others to build on ideas, so that people can contribute what they can to the
Grand design of improving Natural knowledge [for] the Universal Good of
Mankind’.
Whereas there is nothing more necessary for promoting the improvement of Philosophical
Matters, than the communicating to such, as apply their Studies and Endeavours that
way, such things as are discovered or put in practice by others; it is therefore thought fit
to employ the Press as the most proper way to gratifie those, whose engagement in such
Studies, and delight in the advancement of Learning and profitable Discoveries, doth entitle
them to the knowledge of what this Kingdom, or other parts of the World, do, from time to
time, afford, as well of the progress of the Studies, Labours, and attempts of the Curious and
learned in things of this kind, as of their complete Discoveries and performances: To the end,
that such Productions being clearly and truly communicated, desires after solid and useful
knowledge may be further entertained, ingenious Endeavours and Undertakings cherished,
and those, addicted to and conversant in such matters, may be invited and encouraged to
search, try, and find out new things, impart their knowledge to one another, and contribute
what they can to the Grand design of improving Natural knowledge, and perfecting all
Philosophical Arts, and Sciences. All for the Glory of God, the Honour and Advantage of
these Kingdoms, and the Universal Good of Mankind.
Henry Oldenburg [2, pp. 1–2]
The history of the journal can be explored in more depth in the landmark
‘Science in the Making’ project: https://makingscience.royalsociety.org. On this
website, you can discover some of the incredible archives that lie behind the
published articles: peer reviews, correspondence, photographs, illustrations
1Find out more about the history of the journal at https://royalsociety.org/journals/publishing-
activities/publishing350/history-philosophical-transactions.
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution
License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original
author and source are credited.
Editorial
Cite this article: Dixon R, Eaton H. 2025
Celebrating 360 years of Philosophical
Transactions. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 380: 20240492.
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2024.0492
Received: 13 November 2024
Accepted: 13 November 2024
One contribution of 19 to a discussion meeting
issue ‘Bending the curve towards nature recovery:
building on Georgina Mace's legacy for a
biodiverse future’.
Author for correspondence:
Richard Dixon
e-mail: Richard.Dixon@unt.edu
and early drafts. The website is a unique chance to understand how the scientific world has operated over time and how things
have changed.
As I (RD) talked about in an Editorial last year [3], integrity in publishing is at the core of how the Royal Society journals
operate (and from the start of 2025, we will have a dedicated integrity advisor on the journal’s Editorial Board). During 2025, as
part of the anniversary celebrations, we will be reflecting on the state of the publishing industry and the challenges that we face.
Look out for blogs and webinars over the coming months.
Peer review continues to be a cornerstone of scientific publishing. The Royal Society was the first scientific organization to
implement a policy whereby all papers would be reviewed, as announced in the Presidential address of 1832 (given by then
President Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussex; [4]). The problem of reviewer fatigue was recognized even in these early
days—as the announcement states ‘When the number of papers which come before the Society in the course of a year is considered, as
well as the great diversity and occasional difficulty of the subjects which they embrace, it will be at once seen how greatly the labours and
responsibility of the Members of the Council must necessarily be increased by the rigorous adoption of such a system’. The President had a
very high level of confidence in the Fellows of the Royal Society to undertake their role as reviewers: ‘The decisions of men who are
elevated by their character and reputation above the influence of personal feelings of rivalry or petty jealousy, possess an authority sufficient
to establish at once the full importance of a discovery, to fix its relations to the existing mass of knowledge, and to define its probable effect
upon the future progress of science’.
In the spirit of increasing transparency, we hope to start publishing reviewers’ reports and other materials alongside
published articles in the coming months in Philosophical Transactions B. Formats of peer review such as open peer review and
collaborative review are usually seen as very modern, experimental forms of peer review, but in fact, the Royal Society was
experimenting with this in its early days of reviewing—see for example the 1832 published report written by William Whewell
and John William Lubbock, of a paper by Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy [5]. The value and interest of the reviewer
reports were recognized—as the President wrote in his 1832 address ‘the Reports which are thus produced prove often more valuable
than the original communications upon which they are founded, and the collections of them, as is well known, form a most important part of
the stock of modern science’. The collaborative nature of the trial proved a struggle. The additional time and effort to prepare these
reports collaboratively, and in a fashion that was fit for publication, deterred the editorial committee from continuing this open
practice after a couple of years.
It is fitting that this first issue of 2025 is dedicated to Professor Georgina Mace. Georgina, who very sadly died in 2020, was
the Editor in Chief of Philosophical Transactions B in 2010 when the Royal Society celebrated its 350th anniversary. It is worth
looking back at the special issue that Georgina put together to mark this anniversary: ‘Personal perspectives in the life sciences
for the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary’ [6].2 This issue asked leading researchers across the biological sciences to reflect on
their areas of research. The topics cover the broad scope of biological science covered in the journal, and readers may find it
interesting to consider how things have progressed in the last 15 years.
Georgina Mace was the first female Editor in Chief of a Royal Society journal when she took on the role in 2008. The
dedication of the first issue of 2025 to celebrating her work coincides not only with this journal’s anniversary year but also
marks 80 years since the first women, crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale and biochemist Marjory Stephenson, were admitted
to the Royal Society Fellowship. The Royal Society will be celebrating this event with activities during 2025. You can read
more about some of the fascinating stories of our female Fellows in a special collection of memoirs: https://royalsocietypublish-
ing.org/topic/special-collections/celebrating-women-in-science.
Philosophical Transactions B has worked hard to increase the number of women involved with the journal. Today, over 50% of
our Editorial Board are women, and in 2024, 39% of our Guest Editors were women and 44% of our submitting authors. Gender,
age and geographical diversity are critical for the continued success of this journal, and we have been working hard to increase
representation from groups that have not previously published with us. We are very pleased that in 2025 we will have Guest
Editors located in every continent (apart from Antarctica), and we hope that this will also be reflected in the authorship of the
papers that we publish. We welcome submissions of proposals for theme issues from researchers in any area of the world and
at any career stage, so please do keep us in mind if you have an idea. Find out more at https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/
submit-proposal.
The technological developments of the past 360 years have given us a world that appears a smaller place but where issues are
more complex. Science affects all of us; improving natural knowledge is indeed a ‘Grand design’ and the journal is dedicated to
pursuing Oldenburg’s vision of providing a forum for all those who are ‘addicted to and conversant in’ biological discoveries,
that will now shape the twenty-first century.
Ethics. This work did not require ethical approval from a human subject or animal welfare committee.
Data accessibility. This article has no additional data.
Declaration of AI use. We have not used AI-assisted technologies in creating this article.
Authors’ contributions. R.D.: writing—original draft, writing—review and editing. H.E.: writing—original draft, writing—review and editing.
Conflict of interest declaration. We declare we have no competing interests.
Funding. No funding has been received for this article.
Acknowledgements. With thanks to Louisiane Ferlier in the Royal Society’s Centre for History of Science for information on the history of the journal
and for directing us to the wonderful quotes in the archive.
2Theme Issue 'Personal perspectives in the life sciences for the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary' compiled and edited by Georgina Mace, https://royalsocietypublish-
ing.org/toc/rstb/2010/365/1537.
2
royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rstb Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 380: 20240492
References
1. Huxley TH. 1866 On the advisableness of improving natural knowledge. In Collected essays, p. 23, vol. 1. London: Macmillan.
2. Oldenburg H. 1665 An introduction to this tract. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. 1, 1–2. (doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0002)
3. Dixon RA, Dainton J. 2024 Guest-editing under the spotlight. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 379, 20230478. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2023.0478)
4. Frederick PA. 1837 Anniversary meeting, Nov. 30th. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 3, 140–155. (doi:10.1098/rspl.1830.0084)
5. WhewellW, Lubbock JW. 1837 On an inequality of long period in the motions of the Earth and Venus. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. 3, 108–113. (doi:10.1098/rspl.1830.0062)
6. Mace G. 2010 Personal perspectives in the life sciences for the royal society’s 350th anniversary. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 365, 3–4. (doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0232)
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royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rstb Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 380: 20240492
Article
Full-text available
2010 is the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society , first published in 1665, while being a few years younger than the society itself, is still the oldest scientific journal printed in the English-speaking world and the world's longest running
Article
The object of this memoir is similar to that of Laplace’s celebrated investigation of the great inequality of Jupiter and Saturn, announced in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1784, and given in the volume for the succeeding year. The occasion of that investigation was an acceleration of the mean motion of Jupiter and a retardation of that of Saturn,—which inequalities in the motions of the two planets Halley had discovered by a comparison of ancient and modern observations: and Laplace showed, in the Memoirs just referred to, that inequalities like those thus noticed would arise from the action of gravitation; that they would reach a considerable amount in consequence of twice the mean motion of Jupiter being very nearly equal to five times the mean motion of Saturn; and that their period would be nearly 900 years. The occasion of the investigation of Professor Airy was an inequality in the sun’s actual motion, as compared with Delambre’s Solar Tables, which appeared to result from a comparison of late observations with those of the last century,—as Professor Airy has explained in a memoir published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1828. This comparison having convinced him of the necessity of seeking for some inequality of long period in the earth’s motion, it was soon perceived that such an inequality would arise from the circumstance that 8 times the mean motion of Venus is very nearly equal to 13 times the mean motion of the earth. The difference is 1,675 centesimal degrees in a year,—from which it follows, that if any such inequality exist, its period will be about 240 years. To determine whether such an inequality arising from the action of gravitation, amounts to an appreciable magnitude, is a problem of great complexity and great labour. The coefficient of the term will be of the order 13 minus 8, or 5, when expressed in terms of the excentricities of the orbits of the Earth and Venus, and their mutual inclination; all which quantities are small; and the result would therefore, on this account, be very minute. But in the integrations by which the inequality is found, the small fraction expressing the difference of the mean motions of the planets enters twice as a divisor; and by the augmentation arising from this and other parts of the process, the term receives a multiplier of about 2,200,000. In the corresponding step of the investigation of the great inequality of Jupiter and Saturn, it was only necessary to take terms of the 3rd order of smallness, and the multiplier by which the terms are augmented has 30 ² instead of 240 ² for its factor.
Anniversary meeting, Nov. 30th
  • PA Frederick
An introduction to this tract
  • H Oldenburg
Oldenburg H. 1665 An introduction to this tract. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. 1, 1-2. (doi:10.1098/rstl.1665.0002)
On the advisableness of improving natural knowledge
  • T H Huxley
  • Huxley TH