Welcome to The book of science. Come here each week to find poetry and commentary on another milestone of the history of science.

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This week (starting 17 October 2026)

1839,1865: Joseph Schipfer and Joachim Faiguet de Villeneuve described the first international auxiliary languages, followed by the creation of Volapük, Esperanto, and many others.

1839 - 1887

International auxiliary language Universal babble (with dates) Anationalism All men are brothers Commentary

Joseph Schipfer, Joachim Faiguet de Villeneuve, Jean Pirro, Johann Martin Schleyer, L. L. Zamenhof linguistics

Recently

1839	Lanthanum Atomic number 57 Hidden stuff Commentary	Stockholm—Carl Gustaf Mosander elements
1839	Cell theory Factory prototype Seed Commentary	Matthias Jakob Schleiden, Theodor Schwann, Barthélemy Charles Joseph Dumortier, Hugo von Mohl, Robert Remak, Rudolf Virchow cell biology
1838	Distance to a star Parallax A place in the universe Commentary	Friedrich Bessel astronomy
1836	Faraday cage Corks and cans Equilibrium in flux Commentary	Michael Faraday electromagnetism
1835	Coriolis effect Handedness Unhandy Commentary	Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis atmospheric_sciences
1834	Faraday efficiency A charge of one faraday Waste Commentary	Michael Faraday chemistry
1834	Ion Charged particles Faraday cup Going Commentary	Michael Faraday chemistry

Parts of this book

You may jump to some parts of The book of science directly by selecting menu items:

• About, more about this book
• Contents, a table of milestones in the history of science, arranged chronologically
• Elements, tables for the chemical elements
  • Periodic table of the elements
  • Index of elements by year of discovery
  • Index of elements by atomic number
• Scientists, index of scientists, by last name
• Sciences, index of sciences
• Eponymous, index of milestones named after scientists
• Keywords, index of keywords in poems and titles
• Search, where you can search the book by word or phrase

Related works

You may read subsets of The book of science as separate volumes. These generally contain only the last poem on each milestone from the full book:

• Elements of elements of science
• The booklet of science

This web site also includes other works by Tom Sharp and work by other poets.