[FOM] Good gnus for Russell Scholars

[Thomas Forster]

I have for some time been trying to persuade Cambridge University Press to
issue Russell-and-Whitehead Principia Mathematica on a CD in a suitable
searchable format of some kind (not just a lot of jpg files!)  I had lunch
with Roger Astley the other day and had - as usual - armed myself with
further evidence that this would be a Good Thing, only to discover that i
had already convinced him and the matter was in hand!  It seems that the
plan is to issue it in pdf.  God knows how they will deal with all those
funny characters but they seem to think they can do it.  Publication date
not yet announced and i'm not allowed to include one in the authorised
rumours lest this tempt fate.

Now will be able to actually do some serious research on this document -
and will be able to afford to buy it!  (It's always annoyed me that the
price of second-hand copies has been kept artificially high by innumerate
bibliophiles.)

I think this may also be a straw in the wind that CUP are going to issue
other things on their list in the same format - other things that scholars 
might want to mine.  There are people who distribute electronic copies
of works that are out of copyright (i have txt files of the Alice books
from this source) but this looks like a welcome new development.

If you think this is a Good Thing then email rastley at cambridge.org to tell
him he's a hero.

        tf

  URL: www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~tf   Tel: +44-1223-337981
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