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The Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project: Providing access to classic scientific papers and other scholarly materials, since 1993. More About: ESP | OUR CONTENT | THIS WEBSITE | WHAT'S NEW | WHAT'S HOT
Comparative Timelines
The ESP Timeline (one of the site's most popular features) has been completely updated to allow the user to select (using the timeline controls above each column) different topics for the left and right sides of the display.
Select:
New Left Column
New Left Column
Dates
Decade
New Right Column
New Right Column
Physics
History
Paul Karl Ludwig Drude shows that moving electrons conduct electricity in metals.
Paul Ulrich Villard is the first to observe a radiation that is more penetrating than X-rays, now called gamma rays.
On December 14, Max Planck announces the first step toward quantum theory. He states that substances can emit light only at certain energies, which implies that some physical processes are not continuous, but occur only in specified amounts called quanta.
1900
Booker T. Washington publishes Up from Slavery, his autobiography.
Kodak introduces their first Brownie, a very inexpensive user-reloadable point-and-shoot box camera.
(no entry for this year)
1901
Herman Hollerith patents Apperatus For Punching Record Cards
Kodak introduces the 120 film format.
The Metro subway opens in Paris.
Theodore Roosevelt becomes twenty-sixth president of the United States.
Queen Victoria dies and is succeeded by her son, Edward VII.
(no entry for this year)
1902
Arthur Korn devises practical telephotography technology (reduction of photographic images to signals that can be transmitted by wire to other locations).Wire-Photos are in wide use in Europe by 1910, and transmitted to other continents by 1922.
Physicist Ernest Rutherford lectures the British Association that radioactivity could power the sun and maintain its heat, meaning the sun and Earth could be much older than Lord Kelvin's estimate.
1903
W. E. B. Du Bois' The Souls of Black Folk is published on April 27. Du Bois rejects the gradualism of Booker T. Washington and calls for agitation on behalf of African-American rights.
The first motor taxis appear in London
Orville and Wilbur Wright succeed with the first controlled flight in a heavier-than-air machine.
(no entry for this year)
1904
The Rolls-Royce company is founded in Britain.
The Russo-Japanese war begins with a surprise attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the Russian far East Fleet, while it was at anchor at Port Arthur.
Albert Einstein proposes the special theory of relativity (E=mc2).
1905
The first motorized buses operate in London.
The first neon signs appear.
An obscure Swiss patent clerk, Albert Einstein, formulates the special theory of relativity and ushers in the atomic age.
The National Forest Service is established in the United States by Gifford Pinchot.
(no entry for this year)
1906
Computer Pioneer Grace Hopper is Born
An All-India Muslim League is founded by Sultan Mahommed Shah, Aga Khan III.
Mount Vesuvius erupts, devastating the town of Ottaiano, Italy
The Great San Francisco Earthquake kills seven hundred people and causes more than $400 million in property losses.
The world's largest battleship — the Satsuma — is launched in Japan.
(no entry for this year)
1907
Alain Locke of Philadelphia, a Harvard graduate, becomes the first African-American Rhodes scholar to study at Oxford University in England.
The Autochrome plate is introduced. It becomes the first commercially successful color photography product.
Robert Baden-Powell founds the Boy Scout movement, in Britain.
(no entry for this year)
1908
The US flag is modified to have forty-six stars, reflecting the addition of one new state: Oklahoma.
Kinemacolor, a two-color process known as the first commercial "natural color" system for movies, is introduced.
General Motors Corporation is formed.
The Ford Motor Company produces the first Model T. Ultimately, more than 15 million will be produced.
The Young Turk revolution restores the Constitution and parliamentary government in the Ottoman Empire.
(no entry for this year)
1909
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is formed on February 12 in New York City.
Kodak announces a 35 mm "safety" motion picture film on an acetate base as an alternative to the highly flammable nitrate base. The motion picture industry discontinues its use after 1911 due to technical imperfections.
The plastic age begins with the first commercial manufacture of Bakelite.
William Howard Taft becomes twenty-seventh president of the United States.
Tel Aviv, the first Jewish town in modern Palestine, is founded.
United States explorer Commander Robert E. Peary, accompanied by Matthew Henson, is the first person to reach North Pole.
ESP Quick Facts
ESP Origins
In the early 1990's, Robert Robbins was a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, where he directed the informatics core of GDB — the human gene-mapping database of the international human genome project. To share papers with colleagues around the world, he set up a small paper-sharing section on his personal web page. This small project evolved into The Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project.
ESP Support
In 1995, Robbins became the VP/IT of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. Soon after arriving in Seattle, Robbins secured funding, through the ELSI component of the US Human Genome Project, to create the original ESP.ORG web site, with the formal goal of providing free, world-wide access to the literature of classical genetics.
ESP Rationale
Although the methods of molecular biology can seem almost magical to the uninitiated, the original techniques of classical genetics are readily appreciated by one and all: cross individuals that differ in some inherited trait, collect all of the progeny, score their attributes, and propose mechanisms to explain the patterns of inheritance observed.
ESP Goal
In reading the early works of classical genetics, one is drawn, almost inexorably, into ever more complex models, until molecular explanations begin to seem both necessary and natural. At that point, the tools for understanding genome research are at hand. Assisting readers reach this point was the original goal of The Electronic Scholarly Publishing Project.
ESP Usage
Usage of the site grew rapidly and has remained high. Faculty began to use the site for their assigned readings. Other on-line publishers, ranging from The New York Times to Nature referenced ESP materials in their own publications. Nobel laureates (e.g., Joshua Lederberg) regularly used the site and even wrote to suggest changes and improvements.
ESP Content
When the site began, no journals were making their early content available in digital format. As a result, ESP was obliged to digitize classic literature before it could be made available. For many important papers — such as Mendel's original paper or the first genetic map — ESP had to produce entirely new typeset versions of the works, if they were to be available in a high-quality format.
ESP Help
Early support from the DOE component of the Human Genome Project was critically important for getting the ESP project on a firm foundation. Since that funding ended (nearly 20 years ago), the project has been operated as a purely volunteer effort. Anyone wishing to assist in these efforts should send an email to Robbins.
ESP Plans
With the development of methods for adding typeset side notes to PDF files, the ESP project now plans to add annotated versions of some classical papers to its holdings. We also plan to add new reference and pedagogical material. We have already started providing regularly updated, comprehensive bibliographies to the ESP.ORG site.
ESP Picks from Around the Web (updated 06 MAR 2017 )
Old Science
Weird Science
Treating Disease with Fecal Transplantation
Fossils of miniature humans (hobbits) discovered in Indonesia
Dinosaur tail, complete with feathers, found preserved in amber.
Astronomy
Mysterious fast radio burst (FRB) detected in the distant universe.
