Dear All,
I received this question this morning and thought that those of you
who are interested in the origins of the metric system might be
interested in the question and my response.
Pat,
I was looking on the web for a copy of Wilkin's system. Your page
was as close as I got. Is it available anywhere, to your knowledge?
Thanks
Dear ??,
A facsimile edition is available, see http://www.amazon.com/towards-Character-Philosophical-Language-Thoemmes/dp/1855069415
for details of the three copies currently available from Amazon. I
bought my copy from there about two years ago (but I paid only about a
third of the current prices of around $500.00).
Otherwise try your local and especially academic libraries. In the UK
there is a copy of the original 'An Essay towards a Real Character and
a Philosophical Language' at the Royal Society Library, the British
Library has a copy, and there are also copies at Wadham College,
Oxford, and Trinity College, Cambridge. In the USA, there are copies
from the initial print run at the Library of the University of
Virginia and at the Library of Congress. I have physically seen all of
these so they are not simply catalog card entries.
You might be lucky at other libraries as, for a 1668 publication, it
did get fairly wide distribution.
However, be aware, that the original work was written in 17th century
English so it can be a small problem to read from the characters of
that time. I had so much trouble wading through it that I made
translations for my own use and posted then them on my web site http://www.metricationmatters.com
. There are three versions:
http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/WilkinsTranslationLong.pdf has
facsimiles of the original document interspersed with my translations
but it is long, so it takes time to download.
http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/WilkinsTranslationShort.pdf is
much quicker to download as it does not have the original document
pages.
http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/
CommentaryOnWilkinsOfMeasure.pdf contains the same material as the
previous shorter web document but it also includes my comments on
Wilkins work.
You can find all three versions at http://www.metricationmatters.com/articles
You might try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_towards_a_Real_Character_and_a_Philosophical_Language
but most of the links point to my web pages and the link entitled
full text of the work wouldn't open for me.
Cheers and good luck with your research,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
Geelong, Australia
Phone: 61 3 5241 2008
Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has
helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the
modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they
now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for
their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many
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Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST,
and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com
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