''A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts'', generally known as ''Nicholson's Journal'', was the first monthly scientific journal in Great Britain. William Nicholson began it in 1797 and was the editor until it merged with another journal in January 1814. Nicholson's journal would accept short papers, written by new or anonymous authors, and decide whether to publish them relatively quickly. These attributes distinguished the new journal from the established scientific journal '' The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society''. By one account this less-formal model was so appealing that the next year (1798) a similar startup launched,

Alexander Tilloch Alexander Tilloch FSA (Scot) (28 February 1759 – 1825) was a Scottish journalist and inventor. He founded the ''Philosophical Magazine''. Early life The son of John Tilloch, a tobacco merchant and magistrate of Glasgow, he was born there on ...

's '' Philosophical Magazine'',Russell, Colin. Enterprise and electrolysis... ''Chemistry World'', Aug. 2003
online
and in January 1813, a further rival, Thomas Thomson's ''Annals of Philosophy''.

Significant articles

* Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle split water into hydrogen and oxygen for the first time in 1800 and immediately published their results in the journal. They used

Volta's pile upright=1.2, Schematic diagram of a copper–zinc voltaic pile. The copper and zinc discs were separated by cardboard or felt spacers soaked in salt water (the electrolyte). Volta's original piles contained an additional zinc disk at the bottom, ...

(an electric battery) as soon as they learned of it to achieve this

electrolysis In chemistry and manufacturing, electrolysis is a technique that uses direct electric current (DC) to drive an otherwise non-spontaneous chemical reaction. Electrolysis is commercially important as a stage in the separation of elements from n ...

. * Discovery of the element

palladium Palladium is a chemical element with the symbol Pd and atomic number 46. It is a rare and lustrous silvery-white metal discovered in 1803 by the English chemist William Hyde Wollaston. He named it after the asteroid Pallas, which was itself na ...

was announced in 1803. The author chose Nicholson's journal in order to remain anonymous at first, and later revealed himself to be

William Hyde Wollaston William Hyde Wollaston (; 6 August 1766 – 22 December 1828) was an English chemist and physicist who is famous for discovering the chemical elements palladium and rhodium. He also developed a way to process platinum ore into malleable ingo ...

. * The journal published the first known aerodynamic analysis of gliders and

heavier-than-air An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines. C ...

fixed-wing A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct ...

flying machines Flying machines s.r.o. is a Czech manufacturer of light aircraft based in Rasošky. The company was established in 2004 and specializes in kit aircraft for amateur construction and ultralight trike An ultralight trike is a type of powered ...

designs, by

George Cayley Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet (27 December 1773 – 15 December 1857) was an English engineer, inventor, and aviator. He is one of the most important people in the history of aeronautics. Many consider him to be the first true scientific aeri ...

in 1809–1810.Cayley, George. "On Aerial Navigation
Part 1

Part 2

Part 3
''Nicholson's Journal of Natural Philosophy'', 1809–1810. (Via

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Publishing business

By one account, William Nicholson started the journal and made all editorial decisions in a "pioneering and uncertain attempt" to make a living from publishing it. Revenues came only from subscriptions.Chang, 2012, p. 73, also citing Lilley (1948). Tilloch's ''Philosophical Magazine'' was more successful as a popular science journal business than Nicholson's journal, according to one source, and another such journal appeared in 1813 (''

Annals of Philosophy ''Annals of Philosophy; or, Magazine of Chemistry, Mineralology, Mechanics, Natural History, Agriculture and the Arts'' was a learned journal founded in 1813 by the Scottish chemist Thomas Thomson. It shortly became a leader in its field of comme ...

''). Possibly partly because of this competition, William Nicholson ended the journal. By some accounts Nicholson's journal simply ceased, and by others it merged in 1814 with the ''Philosophical Magazine'' to form ''The Philosophical Magazine and Journal''. The "Advertisement", dated 31 December 1813, at the start of Volume 42 of ''The Philosophical Magazine''. states: "Nearly seventeen years have elapsed since ''The Philosophical Journal'' was commenced by Mr. Nicholson, and sixteen since the appearance of the first number of ''The Philosophical Magazine''. .. e result of ..deliberations etween the publishers of ''Nicholson's Philosophical Journal'' and ''The Philosophical Magazine'' in order to respond to readers' complaints regarding duplication of material in the two publicationshas been that it would certainly be best that we should unite, and that the joint product of our exertions and our correspondence should be consolidated in one periodical work. ..The Philosophical Journal will henceforth be discontinued; and The Philosophical Magazine will be conducted by William Nicholson and Alexander Tilloch, in the same manner as it has always been carried on." For the duration of Volume 43 (January to June 1814) the joint publishers of the new merged journal provided duplicate title-pages for each number, ostensibly so that subscribers to ''Nicholson's Philosophical Magazine'' might be enabled to "preserve their Series without a chasm." However, despite their intention to continue this scheme of two-fold numeration, they abandoned it at the end of this trial period in June 1814, because of the perceived "confusion and risque of many errors" when referring to future volumes; from July 1814 a single numeration was used, following the numbering of ''The Philosophical Magazine.''

Bibliography and archives

Complete journal issues have been scanned and are available online at th
Biodiversity Heritage Library
and a
archive.org
thanks to the Natural History Museum Library, London, the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...

and

google books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

References

External links

{{Authority control Publications established in 1797 Multidisciplinary scientific journals English-language journals Natural philosophy 1797 establishments in Great Britain Publications disestablished in 1814

Significant articles

Publishing business

Bibliography and archives

References

Further reading

External links