Linnaeus and Big Data

Staffan Mueller-WilleUniversity of Exeter

S.E.W.Mueller-Wille@exeter.ac.uk

2010

2007

2008

Linnaeus and Big Data

I. Linnaeus as a science popularizer– Those who complain of information overload are

usually the ones that create it.

II. Linnaeus as a pioneer of information processing

– Numbers, Names, and Paper Space.

III. What remains of Linnaeus‘ system?

I. LINNAEUS AS A SCIENCE POPULARIZER

Linnaeus in Sami clothes Martin Hoffmann 1737

C. >linnaeus, Musa cliffortiana (1736)

Hortus Cliffortianus Oil-painting 1737

(A) Travelroutes of Linnaeus’s students; (B) Distribution of Linnaeus’s correspondents

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://lichencolony.files.wordpress.com/2006/05/2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://lichencolony.wordpress.com/&usg=__LZ79asCR8DH5NzPf_kZCtDv0e0c=&h=1686&w=933&sz=228&hl=en&start=56&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=syIVKFTum-FoBM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=83&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlinnaeus%2Bflora%2Blapponica%26start%3D42%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rlz%3D1T4DMUK_en-GBIT334AU336%26ndsp%3D21%26tbs%3Disch:1

II. LINNAEUS AS A PIONEER OF INFORMATION PROCESSING

Fundamenta Botanica 1731-1733

Fundamenta Botanica 1731-1733

Fundamenta Botanica 1731-1733

Species Plantarummanuscript 1746

Species Plantarummanuscript 1746

Linnaeus’s herbarium cabinet

Linnaeus’s personal copy of Genera Plantarum (1737)

Linnaeus, Genera Plantarum 1737 and 1742: Platanus

Linnaeus, Species Plantarum, 1797 – copy of Robert Brown

Index cards used by Linnaeus in the mid-1760s

Linnaeus pat., Linnaeus fil., et al., Supplementum Plantarum, 1776-1781

Carolus Linnaeus, Fragments of a natural methodPhilosophia botanica, Stockholm: Salvius, 1751, Linnean Society London

Tabula genealogico-geographica, 1792

III. WHAT REMAINS OF LINNAEUS

1837

2008

Microbial diversity and lateral gene transfer (2005)