Encyclopaedia-Britannica
The Encyclopaedia Britannica (Latin for "British Encyclopaedia") is a general knowledge English-language online encyclopaedia. It was formerly published by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., and other publishers (for previous editions). It was written by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. The 2010 version of the 15th edition, which spans 32 volumes and 32,640 pages, was the last printed edition.
The Britannica is the English-language encyclopaedia that was in print for the longest time: it lasted 244 years. It was first published between 1768 and 1771 in the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, as three volumes. (This first edition is available in facsimile.) The encyclopaedia grew in size: the second edition was 10 volumes, and by its fourth edition (1801–1810) it had expanded to 20 volumes. Its rising stature as a scholarly work helped recruit eminent contributors, and the 9th (1875–1889) and 11th editions (1911) are landmark encyclopaedias for scholarship and literary style. Starting with the 11th edition and following its acquisition by an American firm, the Britannica shortened and simplified articles to broaden its appeal to the North American market.
In 1933, the Britannica became the first encyclopaedia to adopt "continuous revision", in which the encyclopaedia is continually reprinted, with every article updated on a schedule.[citation needed] In March 2012, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. announced it would no longer publish printed editions, and would focus instead on the online version.
Abundant content
Do you know that these eight editions span over94 years, add up to16,000,000 words, and contain 143 volumes in total.
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Exhaustive explanation
When you see a simple word, what will come to your mind?
Take soap for an example, how do you imagine the people from 16th century perceive this idea? Here's what EB says about it and two more on paper and candle.
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SOAP, in general terms be defined as a chemical compound resulting from the union of fatty oils and fats with alkaline bodies.
In a scientific definition the compounds of fatty acids with basic metallic oxides, lime, magnesia, lead oxide, &c., should also be included under soap;
but, as these compounds are insoluble in water, while the very essence of a soap in its industrial relations is solubility, it is better to speak of the insoluble compounds as “plasters," limiting the name “soap" to the compounds of fatty acids with soda and potash.
SOAP
PAPER is a word derived from the Greek marugas, papyrus, the name applied to the celebrated Egyptian plant which was so much used by the ancients in all kinds of writing.
It is unnecessary to describe the different expedients which men have in every age and country employed for giving permanence to their ideas, and handing them down to posterity.
PAPER
A small taper of tallow, wax, or spermaceti, the wick of which is commonly of several threads of cotton, spun and twisted together.
A tallow-candle, to be good, must be half sheep's and half bullock's tallow; for hog's tallow makes the candle gutter, and always gives an offensive smell, with a thick black smoke.
CANDLE, a small taper of tallow, wax, or spermaceti, the wick of which is commonly of several threads of cotton, spun and twisted together.
A tallow-candle, to be good, must be half sheep's and half bullock's tallow; for hog's tallow makes the candle gutter, and always gives an offensive smell, with a thick black smoke.
CANDLE
About Our Porject
The dataset in our project is the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) version of eight editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica, issued from 1768 to 1860, comprised of a total of 143 volumes. The Encyclopaedia is arranged in the form of a dictionary, which explains in detail the knowledge accumulated by human beings in the past and provides a relatively complete introduction to various knowledge.
There are many advantages to read an encyclopedia, such as cultivating structural thinking and expanding readers’ knowledge. However, in the current era people tend to prefer digital and short readings as they can grasp the information in a matter of minutes. Given this context, we defined our motivation, which is to engage the public audience who are interested in the world-renowned masterpiece but lack the time to actually read it through in the wonderful journey to explore what the treasure book has to offer and give the audience a sense of power when confronting with this magnum opus and the realization of how much work and effort in compiling it, last but not the least, mankind's might and willpower to accomplish after setting a goal.
To meet our goals, we designed this website with visualized the progress what the encyclopedia represents in a temporal fashion.
About Us
Yun
Zhao
Front end Engineer
Master majoring in CS combined with Big Data and Design with zealous passion in machine learning.
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Xuanxuan
Du
Product Manager
Interested in product design field, and wish to create great softwares in the future.
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Amber
Lee
Designer
Product designer working in design field for one year so far, specialised in UI/UX, branding and digital design.
Ang
Xu
Product – Data Analyst
Bachelor’s degree in CS, Master’s in Design Informatics.
Interested in product design and deep learning.
