CARMICHAEL, Robert D. A Treatise on the Calculus of Operations: Designed to Facilitate the Processes of the Differential and Integral Calculus and the Calculus of Finite Differences.
London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1855. First edition.

A fine copy of the first text devoted exclusively to the calculus of operations with presentation to one of the fields main contributors - handwritten presentation on the title page: "Sir John Herschel / with the author's complements", and rubberstamp of the Herschel Library Collingwood. Operational calculus, in which the processes of derivation and integration are represented as algebraic operators, was initially developed in France. But, after having been imported by Babbage and Herschel to Cambridge in the beginning of the nineteenth century, the field became a focal point for mathematical research in Great Britain. Numerous papers were published on the subject by Herschel, Gregory, Peacock, Graves, and De Morgan during the 1830'a and 40's. And in 1844 George Boole published his famous paper on the subject - 'On a general method of analysis' which won the Mathematical Medal of the Royal Society. The first systematic extension of Boole's method to this subject was supplied in a paper of 1851 by Robert Carmichael, who was a fellow at Trinity College, Dublin. And in 1855 Carmichael published his 'Treatise on the Calculus of Operations' - the first text devoted exclusively to the calculus of operations. (See Koppelman: Calculus of Operations and Rise of Abstract Algebra).

8vo (228 x 150 mm). Publishers blind stamped cloth with gilt armorial centerpiece to front board. XII, 170, (2: errata), 24(adverts) pp. A few annotations in pencil throughout the text. A fine copy. Scarce.