AVOGADRO, Amadeo.
Fisica de’ Corpi Ponderabili ossia Trattato della Costituzione Generale de’ Corpi del Cavaliere.

Torino: Stamperia Reale, 1837-41. First edition. A very fine set of one of the great rarities of chemistry. This monumental work is the only major publication of Avogadro (1776-1856), one of the founders of physical chemistry in the early 19th century. The famous hypothesis which bears his name - that equal volumes of all gases and...

SMITH, Robert.
Cours complet d'Optique traduit de l'Anglois ... contenant la Théorie, la Pratique & les Usages de cette Science. Avec des Additions considerables sur toutes les nouvelles découvertes qu'on a faites en cette Matière depuis la publication de l'Ouvrage Anglois. Par L. P. [Esprit Pezenas].

Avignon; Paris: Girard & Seguin; Jombert & Sailant, 1767. A fine copy of the much enlarged first French edition. This was “the most influential optical textbook of the eighteenth century.” (DSB). In this edition the translator Esprit Pezenas (1692-1776), professor of hydrography at the Ecole Royale d’Hydrographie at Marseilles, added numerous plates and material, and this edition is hence...

ROSENBLATT, Frank.
The Perceptron: A Probabilistic Model for Information Storage and Organization in the Brain [with] The Design of an Intelligent Automaton [with] Two Theorems of Statistical Separability on the Perceptron.

Washington and Teddington: American Psychological Association, Office of Naval Resaerch, National Physical Laboratory, 1958. First edition, offprint issues. Three exceptional and rare offprints on the beginning of neural networks and artificial intelligence - the perceptron. “Rosenblatt’s paper (The Perceptron: A Probabilistic Model ...) introduced the perceptron, the first precisely specified, computationally oriented neural network (‘Neural network’ is the term used to describe a system deliberately constructed to employ...

SCHWARZ, Hermann Amandus.
Ueber ein die Flächen Kleinsten Flächeninhalts betreffendes Problem der Variationsrechnung. Festschrift zum jubelgeburtstage des Herrn Karl Weierstrass.

Helsingfors: Finnischen Literatur-Gesellschaft, 1885. First edition. A fine copy of his path-breaking memoir in which he first derived the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality – “one of the most widely used and most important inequalities in all of mathematics.” (J.Michael Steele).

EUCLID of Alexandria.
Das sibend, acht vnd neünt Buch, des hochberühmbten Mathematici Euclidis Megarensis.

Augsburg: Valentine Ottmar, 10 April 1555. Very rare first appearance of any part of Euclid’s work in German, and one of the earliest vernacular editions (preceded only by Italian translations). This is a fine copy with a distinguished provenance.

BERNOULLI, Jakob.
Analysin magni problematis isoperimetrici in actis erud. Lips. m. Maj. 1697 pag. 214 propositi ... sub praesidio Jacobi Bernoulli... publice defendendam suscipit Joh. Jacobus Episcopius.

Basel: Typis Joh. Conradi à Mechel, 1701. Very rare first separate edition of Bernoulli’s solution of the isoperimetric problem, which represents the beginnings of the calculus of variations, later to be developed extensively by Euler and Lagrange.

SCHWENTER, Daniel.
Deliciae Physico Mathematicae. Oder Mathemat und Philosophische Erquickstunden, Darinnen Sechshundert Drey und Sechsig, Schöne, Liebliche und Annehmliche Kunststücklein, Auffgaben und Fragen, auf; der Rechenkunst, Landtmessen, Perspectiv, Naturkündigung und andern Wissenschafften genomen, begriffen seindt, Wiesolche uf der andern seiten dieses blats ordentlich nacheinander verzeichnet worden: Allen Kunstliebenden zu Ehren, Nutz, Ergössung des Gemüths und sonderbahren Wolgefallen am tag gegeben Durch M. Danielem Schwenterum.

Nuremberg: Jeremiae Dumseis, 1636. First edition of this early collection of mathematical puzzles, games and inventions, several of which are illustrated on the title page in small vignettes. The sixteen sections cover a wide range of subjects, from mathematics to optics and hydraulics. Leibniz read a copy of the book in his student days,...

TURING, Alan Mathison.
Computing Machinery and Intelligence.

Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1950. First edition. A fine copy, in original wrappers, of Turing's landmark paper on artificial intelligence. “With the advent of the electronic digital computer came much speculation as to whether or not in processing information these machines were actually thinking. In this paper Turing considered this question from a behavioristic standpoint, proposing an...

BOHR, Niels Henrik David.
On the Quantum Theory of Line-Spectra, I-III [all published].

Copenhagen: Bianco Lunos, 1918-1922. All first editions. Nobel laureate Percy W. Bridgeman’s annotated copies. Besides Bohr’s derivation of the Balmer formula (1913) this work, in which he first gave a clear formulation of his ‘correspondence principle’, is by many considered to be his greatest contribution to physics.

HAMILTON, William Rowan.
On a General Method in Dynamics; by which the Study of the Motions of all free Systems of attracting or repelling Points is reduced to the Search and Differentiation of one central Relation, or characteristic Function. [with:] Second Essay on a General Method in Dynamics.

London: Richard Taylor, 1834-35. First edition. “Hamilton’s first general statement of the characteristic function applied to dynamics was his famous paper ‘On a General Method in Dynamics’ (1834)” (D.S.B. VI, p.88). The analogy between geometrical optics and mechanics, which Hamilton established in this paper, plays a fundamental role in all of modern physics, and was the...

VON NEUMANN, John.
Zur Algebra der Funktionaloperationen und Theorie der normalen Operatoren.

Berlin: Julius Springer, 1929. First edition. Offprint of one of his most important papers in which he “introduced the concept of a ring of operators that later became known as a von Neumann algebra.” (Bradley: Modern Mathematics, p.89). “In two papers [Math. Ann., 102, 49-131, and 370-427, 1929] von Neumann presented an axiomatic approach to Hilbert...

VOLTA, Alessandro.
Account of Some Discoveries Made by Mr. Galvani, of Bologna; With Experiments and Observations on Them. In Two Letters from Mr. Alexander Volta, F. R. S. Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Pavia, to Mr. Tiberius Cavallo, F. R. S.

London: W. Bulmer & Co. for Peter Elmsley, 1793. First edition. Volta's account and correct interpretation of Galvani's experiments on animal electricity communicated to the Royal Society. "When Volta had first heard of Galvani’s discoveries concerning the electrical excitation of disembodied frog’s legs, he dismissed them as unbelievable. Urged by colleagues to repeat Galvani’s experiments, he was surprised to see the...

WATT, James.
Thoughts on the constituent Parts of Water and of Dephlogisticated Air; with an Account of some Experiments on that Subject. In a Letter from Mr. James Watt, Engineer, to Mr. De Luc, F. R. S.

London: Lockyer Davis & Peter Elmsly, 1784. First edition. The first of two letters by Watt setting forth his views on the composition of water. “Watt’s career as a scientist centered on his interest in chemistry. He performed numerous experiments, was in contact with several of the foremost chemists of the day (including Black, Priestley, and Berthollet), and occasionally...