A letter by Rene Descartes, stolen in 1840s, recovered in 2010 by online detective work. The letter was stolen by Guglielmo Libri, inspector general of the libraries of France, who stole thousands of valuable documents and fled to England in 1848. Since 1902 it's been in the collection of Haverford College, its contents unknown to scholars, and nobody there realized that it was an unknown letter. But because they had catalogued it and recently put their catalogue on line, Dutch philosopher Erik-Jan Bos found it "during a late-night session browsing the Internet". (A Haverford undergraduate thirty years ago had translated it and written a paper on it, in which he recognized that the letter was unknown -- but nobody followed up and the letter had sat in the library since then until it was listed online.) The letter includes some last-minute edits to the Meditations, and some thoughts on God as causa sui. Haverford, whose president was a philosophy major, is returning the letter to the Institut de France.
posted by LobsterMitten on Feb 26, 2010 - 21 comments

The Virtual Laboratory - A collection of essays, biographies, instruments and trade catalogues (e.g. experiment kit) from between 1830 and 1930. I must warn you that some of the films are a bit disturbing. Check out the eerie sounding vowel experiments in the audio section too.
posted by tellurian on Mar 2, 2009 - 9 comments

You got your Rube Goldberg machine in my department store catalogue. (Or the other way around, I'm not sure.)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Nov 5, 2007 - 58 comments

Zinc Panic is an archive of Japanese robot culture, documenting everything from the '50s to the present. From cataloging the genera of characters on shows such as Giant Robo and robography of people like Tezuka Osamu, to the latest robo news. See also Rocket Punch Go! [Via Engadget]
posted by riffola on Oct 21, 2004 - 4 comments