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SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: Apr 27, 2012, 6:00am EDT

Buffalo's scientific treasures

Collection of rare editions includes works of Newton, Galileo, Copernicus

Gary Burns

Mary Jean Jakubowski, left, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library director, and Amy Pickard, rare book librarian, examine the Milestones of Science collection. The green book in the director’s hands is a first edition of Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”

Science & Technology- Business First
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One of Buffalo’s magnificent but little-known wonders is housed downtown, cocooned in the climate-controlled environment of the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library. It’s a collection of first editions and other rare editions of the most notable works of science and technological innovation the world has ever seen.

The Milestones of Science, at the library’s central facility, contains nearly 200 items, including original works by Charles Darwin, Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton.

And who are these guys?

It was Darwin who in 1859 established that all species on Earth have descended over time – billions of years – from common ancestry.

Copernicus, working in the 1500s, broke the hearts of “the establishment” by demonstrating that the sun was the center of our solar system, and not the planet Earth.

Galileo pushed Copernicus‘ ideas further, using telecopes to collect eyes-on evidence. He saw Jupiter’s four largest moons in orbit around that giant planet. He managed to aggravate the gentlemen of the Roman Inquisition in 1615, was found guilty of heresy and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

Isaac Newton was perhaps the greatest of them all. His explanation of the laws of gravity, his discovery of the composition of light and the laws of motion later contributed to the development and spread of technologies used today whenever we watch TV or use a cell phone.

The Gutenberg Bible is the work that marked the beginning of the use of mechanical moveable type for printing. That bible was printed in the middle of the 15th century and its publication paved the way for the publication of all the assembled human knowledge, thereafter available for relatively easy access and sharing.

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Gary Burns is a Business First editor who covers science and technology

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