Paris: L’imprimerie Royale; Jean Boudot, 1696; 1700. A fine sammelband comprising the first editions of the first books on the differential and integral calculus, respectively. “In France it was through the Oratorian circle of Nicolas Malebranche that Johann Bernoulli introduced in 1691 the Leibnizian calculus. His lessons to the Marquis..... More
Item #2848

Edinburgh: Printed by T.W. and T. Ruddimans, 1742. First edition, a very fine large and thick paper copy, of “the earliest logical and systematic publication of the Newtonian methods. It stood as a model of rigor until the appearance of Cauchy’s Cours d’Analyse in 1821” (DSB). The Treatise was written..... More
Item #4222

Bologna: per l’herede del Benacci, 1660. First and only edition of this important work on the making of lenses, spectacles, telescopes and microscopes, “the most comprehensive book on the subject” (Ilardi, p. 229). “Seventeenth-century account of dioptrics, dealing with light, refraction, the eye, vision, the invention of spectacles, the making..... More
Item #4948

Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1738. First edition of this famous book which announced the first experimental proof of Newton's theory of universal gravitation, and led to its acceptance on the continent. ❧ Norman 1458; Babson 94. In the Principia Newton had predicted that the earth’s shape was that formed by the..... More
Item #3477

Venice: Franciscum Franciscium Senensem, 1575. First and only edition, rare, containing seven ‘opuscula,’ and, with separate title and pagination, the Arithmeticorum libri duo; all of these works were published here for the first time. One of the ‘opuscula’ contains the most important original work on conic sections published in the..... More
Item #2613

London & Cambridge: Macmillan, 1871. First edition, extremely rare, of Maxwell's inaugural lecture as Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge, which marks the beginning of the tradition of experimental research at the Cavendish Laboratory, a tradition which was to lead to 29 Nobel Prizes being awarded to..... More
Item #4958

London: Harrison & Sons, 1880. First edition, in the very rare original printed wrappers, of Maxwell’s last paper, “published posthumously in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, [which] concerned a means of measuring the speed of the Earth through the hypothetical aether, and was the inspiration for Michelson and Morley’s..... More
Item #4303

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873. First edition, first issue, the copy of The Garden Ltd., of Maxwell’s presentation of his theory of electromagnetism, advancing ideas that would become essential for modern physics, including the landmark “hypothesis that light and electricity are the same in their ultimate nature” (Grolier/Horblit). “This treatise did..... More
Item #4925

London: Taylor & Francis, 1910. A fine copy of Millikan’s famous experiment, later known as the ‘oil-drop experiment’, in which he first provided the definitive proof that all electrical charges are exact multiples of a definite, fundamental value—the charge of the electron. Millikan’s experiment is nowadays known as the ‘oil-drop..... More
Item #4548

Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1866 [- 1864]. First edition, journal issues in the original printed wrappers, of two of the most important papers in the early history of topology, including the introduction (and illustration) in the 1865 paper of the famous ‘Möbius band’ (or ‘Möbius strip’). “August Möbius was one of..... More
Item #4826

London: W[illiam]. Pearson for the Author, 1718. First edition, and an unusually fine copy without any restoration, of this classic on the theory of probability, the first original work on the subject in English. “De Moivre’s book on chances is considered the foundation for the field of probability and statistics”..... More
Item #4637

Venice: Bernardo Giunta & G.B. Ciotti, 1609. First edition, very rare, of the principal astronomical work of one of the greatest Renaissance mathematicians. “Guidobaldo was Galileo’s patron and friend for twenty years and was possibly the greatest single influence on the mechanics of Galileo” (DSB). Guidobaldo was also influential in..... More
Item #2745

Paris: J. Quilau, 1708. A fine copy, of the first separately published textbook of probability. “In 1708 [Montmort] published his work on Chances, where with the courage of Columbus he revealed a new world to mathematicians” (Todhunter, p. 78). “The Essay (1708) is the first published comprehensive text on probability..... More
Item #3894