William R. Newman took part in NOVA/BBC filming of a documentary about Isaac Newton's alchemy and theology. With the aid of the Indiana University Chemistry Department, Newman replicated a number of Newton's laboratory processes, and built a working replica of one of his metallurgical furnaces. All of this was filmed for the documentary, which appeared in 2005 as "Newton's Dark Secrets." WGBH, producers of NOVA, have posted an accompanying interactive webpage which may be viewed at the following: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/newton/.
Academic Articles
John A. Walsh and Wallace Edd Hooper, "The Liberty of Invention: Alchemical Discourse and Information Technology Standardization," Literary and Linguistic Computing 27 (2012), 55–79.
William R. Newman, "Newton's Early Optical Theory and its Debt to Chymistry," in Lumière et vision dans les sciences et dans les arts. De l'Antiquité au XVIIe siècle, ed. Danielle Jacquart and Michel Hochmann (Geneva: Droz, 2010), 283–307.
William R. Newman, "Geochemical Concepts in Isaac Newton's Early Alchemy," in The Revolution in Geology from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, ed. Gary D. Rosenberg (Boulder: Geological Society of America, 2009), 41–49.
William R. Newman, "Newton's Theory of Metallic Generation in the Previously Neglected Text 'Humores minerales continuo decidunt'," in Chymists and Chymistry: Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry, ed. Lawrence M. Principe (Sagamore Beach, MA: Chemical Heritage Foundation and Science History Publications, 2007), 89–100.
Cesare Pastorino, Tamara Lopez and John A. Walsh, "The Digital Index Chemicus: toward a digital tool for studying Isaac Newton's Index Chemicus," Body, Space & Technology Journal 7.20 (2008) <http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol0702/cesarepastorino/>.
Presentations and Lectures
William R. Newman, "Unsolved Mysteries of Newton's Alchemy," "A great variety of admirable discoverys": Newton's Principia in the Age of Enlightenment, The Royal Society, London, UK, December 11–13, 2013.
William R. Newman, "Newton's Reputation as an Alchemist and the Tradition of Chymiatria," The Reception of Newton: International Conference at the Edward Worth Library, Dublin, July 12–13, 2012.
William R. Newman, "Isaac Newton and Chymical Medicine," Alchemy and Medicine from Antiquity to the Enlightenment, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, September 22–24, 2011.
John A. Walsh and Wallace Edd Hooper, "Computational Discovery and Visualization of Semantic Structures in Historical and Literary Corpora: The Chymistry of Isaac Newton & The Algernon Charles Swinburne Project" (poster), Digital Humanities 2011, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, June 19–22, 2011 <http://www.slis.indiana.edu/faculty/jawalsh/posters/computational_discovery_and_vis.pdf>.
William R. Newman, "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Project as an Example of Work in Digital Humanities" (with Wally Hooper), Digital HPS Workshop, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, April 14–17, 2011.
William R. Newman, "Chymistry in Isaac Newton's Early Theory of Light and Color," (invited lecture), McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, April 6, 2010.
William R. Newman, "Chemistry and Optics, " Newton:Milton, Two Cultures?, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, July 20–24, 2009
Wallace Edd Hooper and Timothy D. Bowman, "Isaac Newton's alchemical symbols," Digital Library Brownbag Series, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, March 25, 2009.
Stacy T. Kowalczyk, John A. Walsh, Timothy D. Bowman and Jon. W. Dunn, "Digital humanities annotation," Institute for Digital Arts and Humanities Brownbag Series, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, February 5, 2009.
William R. Newman, "Art and Nature in the Alchemical Work of Isaac Newton," (invited lecture), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2009.
William R. Newman, "Newton's Chymistry," (invited lecture), University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 2009.
John A. Walsh and Tamara Lopez, "The 'Chymistry' of Isaac Newton," Digital Library Brownbag Series, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, February 8, 2006.
John A. Walsh, "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton: New Technologies and Old Science" (poster), Digital Resources for the Humanities (DRH), Lancaster University, Lancaster, England, UK, September 4–7, 2005.
William R. Newman et. al., "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton" (invited talk), Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) Scholarly Communication Institute, University of Virginia, Charlotesville, VA, July 17–19, 2005.
John A. Walsh "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton: New Technologies and Old Science" (poster), Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Science and Technology Section (STS), American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference, McCormick Place Convention Center, Chicago, IL, June 23–25, 2005.
William R. Newman, "Alchemy and Optics in the work of Isaac Newton" (invited lecture), Lumière et vision dans les sciences et dans les arts. De l'Antiquité au XVIIe siècle, Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, Paris, June 9–11, 2005.
William R. Newman, "Theology in the Laboratory? New Light on Isaac Newton's Alchemy" (invited lecture), History and Philosophy of Science and Technology Colloquium Series, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, May 5, 2004.
William R. Newman, "Newton's Alchemy, The Tabula Smaragdina, and the Aerial Niter" (invited lecture), The Magic of Things. A workshop held at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, April 11–12, 2003.