Royal Society

Although a voluntary body, it serves as the national academy of the sciences in the United Kingdom. It is a member organisation of the Science Council.

It's possible that the Royal Society was one of the first documented aspirations toward Open Content; they imagined a network across the globe as a public enterprise, an "Empire of Learning". They also were one of the first documented cases of attempting to deal with having content available to address language and languages within the Sciences, and strove to remove language barriers. Dedicated to the free flow of information, the Royal Society despised secrecy and encouraged communication.

Famous members

Several famous scientists were either the founding members or involved during its history. The early group included Robert Boyle, John Evelyn, Robert Hooke, William Petty, John Wallis, John Wilkins, Thomas Willis and Sir Christopher Wren. Isaac Newton demonstrated his theory of optics to them, and later became president of the society.
The motto "Nullius in Verba" means literally "On the words of no one" signifying the Society's commitment to establishing the truth of scientific matters through experiment rather than through citation of authority. Although this seems obvious today, the philosophical basis of the Royal Society differed from previous philosophies such as Scholasticism, which established scientific truth based on deductive logic, concordance with divine providence and the citation of such ancient authorities as Aristotle.

Thomas Bayes first presented his theorem at the society.

A selected list of presidents

• Sir Christopher Wren (1680-1682)
• Samuel Pepys (1684-1686)
• Charles Montagu (1695-1698)
• Lord Somers (1698-1703)
• Sir Isaac Newton (1703-1727)
• Joseph Banks (1778-1820)
• Sir Humphry Davy (1820-1827)
• The Duke of Sussex (1830-1838)
• Lord Rosse (1848-1854)
• Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1873-1878)
• Thomas Henry Huxley (1883-1885)
• George Gabriel Stokes (1885-1890)
• Lord Kelvin (1890-1895)
• Joseph Lister (1895-1900)
• Sir William Huggins (1900-1905)
• Lord Rayleigh (1905-1908)
• Sir Joseph John Thomson (1915-1920)
• Lord Rutherford of Nelson (1925-1930)
• Sir William Henry Bragg (1935-1940)
• Lord May of Oxford (since 2000)

Selected bibliography