Philosophical Magazine

The Philosophical Magazine is one of the oldest scientific journals published in English. It was established by Alexander Tilloch in 1798;¹ in 1822 Richard Taylor became joint editor¹ and it has been published continuously by Taylor & Francis ever since.

Early history

The name of the journal dates from a period when "natural philosophy" embraced all aspects of science. The very first paper published in the journal carried the title "Account of Mr Cartwright's Patent Steam Engine". Other articles in the first volume include "Methods of discovering whether Wine has been adulterated with any Metals prejudicial to Health" and "Description of the Apparatus used by Lavoisier to produce Water from its component Parts, Oxygen and Hydrogen".

19th century

Early in the nineteenth century, classic papers by Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday and James Prescott Joule appeared in the journal and in the 1860s James Clerk Maxwell contributed several long articles, culminating in a paper containing the deduction that light is an electromagnetic wave or, as he put it himself, "We can scarcely avoid the inference that light consists in transverse undulations of the same medium which is the cause of electric and magnetic phenomena". The famous experimental paper of Albert A. Michelson and Edward Morley was published in 1887 and this was followed ten years later by J. J. Thomson with article "Cathode Rays" – essentially the discovery of the electron.

In 1814, the Philosophical Magazine merged with the Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts, otherwise known as (published by ), to form . Further mergers in 1827 with the , and in 1840 with (named the until 1832) led to the retitling of the journal as . In 1949, the title reverted to .