Henry Oldenburg

Henry Oldenburg (v. 1618 with Bremen - 1677 with London) is a diplomat and scientist of origin German, become first secretary of the Royal Society and known to have established a vast network of co-operation and exchanges between European scientists at the 17th century.

Its life and its work

Wire of a professor of university, it makes studies of theology at the university of Utrecht, then follows the occupation of tutor in several towns of Europe. In addition to German, he speaks French, Italian and English. A diplomatic mission near Oliver Cromwell the conduit in England, where it is charged to negotiate the protection of the ships which ensure the prosperity of its birthplace. Being established in London, it becomes one of the first members of Royal Society, which appoints it its first secretary in 1662. Shortly after the publication in France of the first number of the Newspaper of the sçavans , it founds on its account in 1665 the newspaper Philosophical Transactions , in which it publishes the letters that the scientists of whole Europe address to him.

Among its correspondents, which it will maintain the network throughout its career, are some of the researchers and philosophers more advances some over their time, inter alia Rasmus Bartholin, Robert Boyle, Comenius, Samuel de Fermat, Thomas Hobbes, Robert Hooke, Huygens, Leibniz, Spinoza, Melchisédech Thévenot, Isaac Vossius. He formulates on their behalf the ambition of science: “To push until the extreme limit of the things and to endeavor to penetrate the anteroom of Nature to reach its secret cabinet. ” Without letting itself assign by an imprisonment to the Turn of London in 1667, caused by the suspicions which had waked up its bulky correspondence with the foreigner, nor by the enmities which inevitably make their appearance in the slides of the Academy, it will continue by all the means to thwart the censure to facilitate the communications between researchers and to use of its diplomatic talents to alleviate the tensions and to defuse the quarrels between scientists. Among those of which it supports and encourages work, some will be particularly illustrated in the years to come, in particular Newton, Flamsteed, Malpighi and Leeuwenhoek.

The French scholar Samuel Sorbière, which had met it “extremely often in Paris, & at home, & in the Parliament of Mr. de Montmor, to which it estoit extremely assiduous” and which again meets it in London, speaks about Henry Oldenburg like “this curious German” which, “having benefitted from its voyages” and “having rubbed its brain against the brain of autruy, estoit is made consider on its return in England, like a person able to hold the feather of the Academy. ”

Random links: