This series of works is a scientific classic that has stood the test of history for a long time since the birth of modern science in the Renaissance. In order to distinguish it from the word "classic" which is widely used now, we call it "the original book of science".

What we call "classics" here is different from what fans call "classics" and from what performing artists recite. Popular songs popular with fans belong to "contemporary classics", but they are actually fashionable things, and their meanings are just the opposite of what we call traditional classics. Most of the "scientific classics" recited by performing artists are essays expressing scientists' feelings and attitudes towards life, and even dramatic lines reflecting scientists' lives. They may be well-known and whether they belong to the classics in the humanities field, but they have little scientific content. The speeches of famous scientists or widely circulated works are not all scientific classics.

The so-called scientific classics here refer to the most basic and important works in the scientific classics, which are epoch-making monuments in the history of human knowledge and civilization, carriers of rational spirit and have eternal value.

Scientific classics are either the monument of a profound scientific revolution, the framework of a rigorous scientific system, or the cornerstone of a dynamic scientific field. They are not only a creative summary of past scientific achievements, but also a rational support for future scientific exploration.

Copernicus's Theory of the Operation of Celestial Bodies is the most revolutionary and soul-shaking work in human history, which challenges the geocentric theory that has dominated western thought for more than a thousand years and shakes the astronomical foundation of the theory of "orthodox religion". Galileo's Dialogue between Ptolemy and Copernicus further demonstrated Copernicus' theory with conclusive evidence, and more directly shook Ptolemy's theory of being sheltered by the church. Harvey's theory of painstaking care and movement, with its dual concern for human body and mind and sincere religious feelings, expounded the theory of blood circulation and overthrew Galen's theory, which also ruled western thought for more than 1000 years and was sheltered by "orthodox religion" Descartes' geometry not only created analytic geometry and provided tools for later calculus, but also reflected the ideological methodology that influenced the whole world. Newton's Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy marked the peak of the scientific revolution in the17th century and laid a scientific foundation for the later industrial revolution. The debate between wave theory and particle theory, represented by Huygens' theory of light and Newton's optics, has lasted for more than 200 years. Lavoisier elaborated the oxidation theory in Basic Chemistry, which overthrew the phlogiston theory that dominated chemistry for more than one hundred years. This intellectual feat is regarded as the most conscious scientific revolution in history. Dalton's "new system of chemical philosophy" laid the foundation of the theory of material structure, initiated a new era of science, and made chemists in the19th century advance into the unknown field in a planned way. Fourier's analytical theory of heat, with its exquisite treatment of heat conduction, broke through the theoretical mechanics range stipulated by Newton's principle and created a brand-new field of mathematics and physics. The idea of evolution in Darwin's On the Origin of Species is not only the object of explanation by scientists today when biology has developed to the molecular level, but also exerts its tangible and intangible influence in almost all fields of science, society and humanities for more than 100 years. "Gene theory" reveals the material basis of Mendel's genetic trait transmission mechanism and promotes life science to the gene level. Einstein's "Introduction to Special and General Relativity" and Schrodinger's "Four Lectures on Wave Mechanics" respectively expounded the laws of motion of the material world in the high-speed and microscopic fields, which completely changed the world view since Newton. Wei Gena's Origin of Land and Sea puts forward the conjecture of continental drift, which provides a new development foundation for contemporary earth science. Wiener's cybernetics reveals the feedback process of the control system, and I.llyaPrigogine's From Existence to Evolution discovers the mechanism that the system may change from the original disordered state to a new ordered state. Today, the influence of their thoughts has gone far beyond the field of natural science, affecting economics, sociology, political science and other fields.

The eternal charm of the scientific yuan Dian fascinated later generations, especially later thinkers. Euclid's Elements of Geometry has been circulated as a manuscript for more than 65,438+0,800 years, and more than 65,438+0,000 editions have been published in various languages. Archimedes wrote many scientific works, and Leonardo da Vinci regarded him as an idol and eagerly searched for his manuscript. Galileo claimed to be his heir. Leibniz, on the other hand, said that people who know him will not appreciate the achievements of outstanding people in later generations so much. Bruno was burned at the stake by the church to defend the theory in the Theory of the Operation of Celestial Bodies. Galileo was imprisoned for life and tortured by the church because of his book "Dialogue between Ptolemy and Copernicus". Galileo said Gilbert's books on magnetism were enviable. Laplace said that the mathematical principles of Newton's natural philosophy have revealed the greatest laws of the universe, and it will always be a monument of profound wisdom. Lavoisier was executed by the French revolutionary court five years after his basic theory of chemistry was published. Legend has it that it only takes a moment to cut off this head, and the first hundred years like this are not enough. Dalton, the author of The New System of Chemical Philosophy, was invited to visit France. When he entered the conference hall of the French Academy of Sciences, the president and all academicians stood up to pay tribute, which won Napoleon unprecedented honor. The powerful mathematical tools expounded by Fourier in the analytic theory of heat have profoundly influenced the whole modern physics and promoted the development of mathematical analysis for more than a century. Maxwell praised the book as "a wonderful poem". When people cursed the Origin of Species as "the devil's classic" and "the philosophy of animals", Huxley Gump became "Darwin's fighting dog", stood up to defend the theory of evolution, and wrote books such as Evolution and Ethics and Man's Position in Nature to explain Darwin's theory. After Yan Fu's translation, Huxley's works became the ideological weapon for the reform leader, the elite of 1911 and the May 4th fighters to transform China. Einstein said that Faraday's idea of magnetic field and electric field demonstrated in "Experimental Research on Electricity" is the most profound change on the basis of physics since Newton.

In the Yuan Dian of science, there are endless legends, spiritual fluctuations that subvert ideas, inspiring rational thinking and inexhaustible spiritual sources.

According to Price, a pioneer of scientometrics, modern scientific literature has an exponential growth trend in most of the time. In the modern scientific community, a considerable number of scientific documents have been published, and no one has quoted them. It is the scientific literature that has been cited for a period of time, and many of them are quickly overwhelmed by new literature. Science focuses on creating new real knowledge. In this sense, science is forward looking. However, we can also see that so many documents are submerged, which also shows that the number of epoch-making scientific documents is very small. Most scientific dictionaries have not been cited by modern scientific literature, because the knowledge in them has already become scientific common sense and needs no proof. Even so, scientific classics, like those in the humanities field, will have eternal reading value because of their eternal significance. Therefore, scientific classics are edited, printed and reprinted.

Ostwald, an early Nobel Prize winner, published the classic series of physics and chemistry "Classic of Precision Natural Science" from 1889. Later, it has been edited and published in the name of "ostwald's Classic Works". It is reported that more than 250 volumes have been published. The medical classic series edited by Sudhof was published from 19 10. Also in this year, Distillers Club edited and published 20 volumes of Distillers Club reprint series, all of which are chemical classics, and this version was even quoted by chemists in scientific journals published in the 2nd century. It is generally believed that the chemical revolution in lavoisier in 1789 marked the birth of modern chemistry, and the first world war that broke out in 19 14 was called the battle of chemists. Knight compiled the articles reflecting the great progress of chemistry in this period into one volume, and the other nine summative chemical works in this period into one volume, which was compiled as10 "Chemical Development of1789-1914" and published in 1998. There are many classic books in a certain scientific field like this.

Classics in science, like classics in humanities, can stand repeated chewing. Together, the classics of the two fields can outline the development track of human intelligence. Because of this, many classic series published in developed countries contain important works in these two fields. From 65438 to 0924, Walcott began to edit a series of original literature, including humanities. This project is supported by American Philosophy Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society for the History of Science, American Anthropology Association, American Mathematical Association, American Mathematical Society and American Astronomical Society. 1925, the original documents of astronomy and mathematics in this series were published, and the market situation of these two books has been very good for 25 years after their publication. 1950, he developed the classic part of science in this series into the original document of the series of history of science. Among them, the original documents of Greek science, medieval science and 20th century (1900- 1950) were edited and published according to the scientific disciplines (astronomy, mathematics, physics, geology, animal biology and chemistry) from the Renaissance to the 9th century. The famous books edited by Johnson, milliken and Witherspoon include the three-volume Famous Books of Science edited by George W. Konedler, which was first published in 1947 and later reprinted many times.

Among the comprehensive classic series, the most influential is the Series of Great Works in the Western World compiled by hutchins and Ejedro in 1943. This set of books cost $2 million and was completed in 1952. According to the standards of originality, documentary value, historical position and significance of existence, this series has selected 443 works by 74 western historical and cultural masters, plus the introduction and comprehensive index of the series, with a total of 54 volumes, 25 million words and 32,000 pages. There are many scientific works in this series. Not only "big spenders" and scholars, but also butchers, bakers and candlesticks buy this series. Up to 1965, the series has been reprinted about 30 times, and has been reprinted many times since then. Any decent university library in any country lists it as a required reading. This series of books is the product of the classic works learning movement which rose in American universities in the first half of the 20th century, and later extended to the whole society. During this period, students can be heard discussing classic works in apartments, campuses and bars of some American universities. Some universities require students to learn more than 100 masterpieces, even without using the latest experimental equipment in teaching, but with the help of the methods and instrument replicas used by historical science masters, to reproduce epoch-making famous experiments. By the end of 1940, there were 300 cities in the United States offering classical literature courses with more than 50,000 students.

In contrast, classics in the eyes of Chinese people often refer to humanities rather than science. The Elements of Geometry written by the ancient Greeks around 300 BC was translated into Chinese three times from 1592 to 1605, but all failed. The whole book was translated and published twice in1early 7th century and 1850 respectively. Many of the western classics translated in the past century are systematic, but they are all in the humanities field. Chinese translation of scientific and technological works is mostly for the needs of the situation, and few classics are seen. 1At the end of 1970s, when the whole country celebrated the arrival of the "Science Spring", some outstanding people called for the compilation and publication of "World Natural Science Masterpieces", but in the end, the outstanding people regretted it. The Library of Scientific Masterpieces published in the early 1990s (65438-0990s) at first glance systematized the translation of scientific masterpieces into Chinese, but in China's vast reading circle, the volume is only 10, which is not commensurate with a vast country with a long cultural tradition.