The papers of one of Britain’s greatest scientists, which were lost for centuries and saved for the nation in a £1 million sale last year, become available to read online today. The innovative “digital folio” provides unprecedented public access to hundreds of pages of manuscript notes and minutes kept by Robert Hooke, who is sometimes described as Britain’s Leonardo da Vinci. The remarkable collection contains Hooke’s minutes of early meetings of the Royal Society, taken while he was curator of experiments and then secretary of the national academy of science, between 1661 and 1692. They record many of the scientist’s...