Four Centuries of the Royal Society
Last year the Royal Society of London opened their online archive of journals to the public (it closed in December, and costs ~$9000 for a year subscription). This archive goes back over 340 years (1665 through today) and is home to some of the most famous works ever published: Newton’s work, Halley (of comet fame), Watson and Crick’s DNA, the discovery of aspirin, Benjamin Franklin, the list goes on. A really cool resource, especially when it was free.
Chris Harrison has taken all the citations from the archive and created a visualization of the journal over the past 4 centuries.
This visualization displays papers chronologically. Paper titles radiate downward from the vertical midpoint at a 45 degree angle. Within a single year, papers are sorted alphabetically. The year a volume was published is shown, centered among it’s respective block of papers. The size varies linearly by the number of number of papers published during that year’s volume. Authors are shown radiating upwards from the vertical midpoint at a 45 degree angle. Their positions are computed by calculating the average position of the papers they authored. The size of the author’s name reflects how prolific they were (linear relationship). Essentially, author names are “centered” above the time period they were active.