Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society

The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, or Phil Trans is short, a scientific journal published by the British Royal Society. It is the oldest English and - after the French Journal des sçavans - second oldest journal in the world. The term philosophical herein is derived from the then customary expression natural philosophy, natural science.

The first issue was published on March 6, 1665, six years after the founding of the Royal Society. Its editor was Henry Oldenburg. According to Oldenburg's death the company's activities were briefly edited by Robert Hooke and published from 1679 to 1682 under the revised title Philosophical Collections.

1887 the journal was divided into two parts:

• Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Physical, Mathematical and Engineering Sciences, and
• Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Both journals give today out special issues, individual articles appear in the sister journal Proceedings of the Royal Society.

The archives of the Philosophical Transactions was digitized by JSTOR in 1999, copy right free texts (70 years and older) are available free of charge.

On 21 July 2011 it was announced that a hacktivist has created nearly 19,000 historical scientific documents of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society at The Pirate Bay. He protested against it so that they can be accessed only through fee-based archives, even though they are public domain. The action is in connection with the arrest and indictment of Aaron Swartz. In September 2011, JSTOR has announced public access to the public domain portion of the magazine texts.