137 Years Of Popular Science Online Free

137 years of the magazine Popular Science are now being hosted online by Google. You can peruse at your leisure, though you’ll have to search by keyword. We don’t see a date or issue browsing option. The cover art alone is worth your time, even if you’re not a fan of the articles. Many of us have fond memories of our childhood being influenced by the contents of these pages.

[via BoingBoing]

31 thoughts on “137 Years Of Popular Science Online Free

  1. 137 years of Make, Instructables and Hackaday all rolled into one! The advertisements are amazing. The shop articles from the 20’s and 30’s are particularly interesting for the solutions to everyday problems that they address that are very familiar (and no arduinos, relay logic anyone?).

  2. March 1879: The Electric Light

    The very last sentence…

    “And yet it is Faraday’s spark which now shines upon our coasts, and promises to illuminate our streets, halls, quays, squares, warehouses,
    and, perhaps at no distant day, our homes.”

    This issue of PopSci is from before Edison’s light bulb! People didn’t have electricity, they couldn’t fly, they didn’t even know that matter is made up of electrons, protons, and neutrons. This was also published a mere 10 years after Dmitri Medeleev came up with the periodic table.

    1879 was a different time, wasn’t it?

  3. I used to love popular science as a kid. And “How stuff works”. They both kind of suck now. It seems like popular science is more “the latest overpriced gadgets” than anything useful.

  4. Dude, thats bunk, I sent this in a week ago, with the google books link as well. Maybe Im missing something, but Ive submitted so many things to hackaday in the past, only to see it come up with someone else getting credit.

  5. i am amazed what 15 years technologie evolution represents. ( i am 17)
    its strange that some ideas comes again and again:
    a camouflage that changes color with the environment, computer aided. page 62
    maybe not doable at that moment, but now …
    http://books.google.com/books?id=RudyJP1ByycC&printsec=frontcover&dq=issn:01617370&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=1900&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=1995&num=30&as_brr=0&hl=fr&rview=1&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

    oh and a little more down page 70 they talk about NASA budget that is shorten. their saying something like “the first man on the moon was the last” and it is still true ^^

    juste amazing
    *sry for bad english*

  6. nevermind
    hackaday DIDNT real my emails
    http://books.google.com/books?id=wCYDAAAAMBAJ&source=gbs_all_issues_r&cad=3&atm_aiy=1870#all_issues_anchor
    this is issue 1
    you can click on the year to change,
    http://books.google.com/books?id=wCYDAAAAMBAJ&source=gbs_all_issues_r&cad=3&atm_aiy=2000#all_issues_anchor
    this is the most current issues
    hey hackaday, please read your emails and link these in the main article as its alot easier to browse by year(with full search)
    than by stealing boingboing’s method

  7. Awesome. I used to love reading the little ads in the back selling all sort of wonders. Helicopters built from lawnmower engines, real Star Wars Light Sabres, things that you can shock people across the room, etc.

  8. This is freakin cool… One thing though – These are full view, but google doesn’t offer the download to pdf option – anyone know of a good 3rd party app for doing so? I’d like to back these up and see how many decades I can fit on my psp…

  9. Just found this when I wanted to download some of these PopSci books. GoogleBooks loads a lot of stuff into your cache just like any other site, including the pages that you look at. The easiest way to grab a book (unless there’s some script or whatever) is to copy the files out of your browser cache.

    Start off with a portable version of Chrome for easy cache snagging, or whatever browser you are comfortable with. Clear all the cache data. Then load that GoogleBooks page (and ONLY that one too prevent confusion).
    Go into that browser’s cache folder and start opening the temporary files (I use IrfanView b/c it’s good at reading pic headers) until you reach the first pic. Now go back to you browser and scroll down the GoogleBooks page to let all of the images load. Hop back to the cache folder and find the last pic of magazine.
    Copy all the mag pics and batch rename to add the proper extension and wham-o, a cool PopSci collection for you.

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