New York: The Association for Symbolic Logic, Inc., 1936. First edition, journal issue in the original printed wrappers, of Church’s solution to the ‘Entschedungsproblem’ (‘decision problem’). “Church’s paper, submitted on April 15, 1936, was the first to contain a demonstration that David Hilbert’s Entscheidungsproblem – i.e., the question as to..... More
Item #5483

Paris: Nyon, Didot and Quillau, 1731. First edition, very rare, of Clairaut’s first publication, the first extended treatment of the geometry of curves in three dimensions, written when he was only sixteen. In it Clairaut demonstrates a claim made by Newton that all cubic curves in three dimensions are projections..... More
Item #5816

Lancaster, PA & Corning, NY: American Physical Society, [1923]. First edition, journal issue in original printed wrappers, of the ‘Compton effect,’ which demonstrated the existence of quanta of electromagnetic radiation, later called photons. “This discovery ‘created a sensation among the physicists of the time.’ There were the inevitable controversies surrounding..... More
Item #3588

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1832. First edition, complete journal volume in original printed wrappers, of this important work on the theory of machines, a follow-up to his Du calcul de l’effet des machines, published in 1829 (but begun a decade earlier) in which he studied dynamical problems associated with rotating machinery. “His..... More
Item #5019

Colonia [Venice]: Andrea Poletti, 1693. First edition, rare when complete, of this sumptuously illustrated work, a uniquely valuable source for the documentation of several of the most elaborate large-scale globes and astronomical mechanisms, some now lost, constructed during the latter decades of the seventeenth century. Coronelli, a Franciscan monk, was..... More
Item #4861

Manchester: Printed by Harrison and Crosfield for Baldwin and Cradock, 1834. Second edition (first, 1793), inscribed by Dalton, of Dalton’s first book which, according to Dalton himself, “contained the germs of most of the ideas afterwards expanded by him into discoveries” (DNB V, 428-34). Dalton (1766-1844) is famous today for..... More
Item #4946

Cambridge: [the University Press for the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 1835. First edition, very rare, inscribed by John Stevens Henslow, of Darwin’s first separately printed work and his first account in print of his discoveries on the Beagle. “During his five-year voyage on HMS Beagle, Darwin maintained a correspondence with John..... More
Item #5657

London: John Murray, 1872. Sixth edition (the first to employ the word ‘evolution’), inscribed by Darwin, of “the most influential scientific work of the nineteenth century” (Horblit), “the most important biological work ever written” (Freeman), and “a turning point, not only in the history of science, but in the history..... More
Item #4981

[Lyon]: Guillaume Huyon for Constantin Fradin, June 2, 1520. First edition, extremely rare, of the first published work on algebra in French. This is a fine copy in a beautiful contemporary binding. Born in Lyon, then the principal commercial centre of France, La Roche was a student of Nicolas Chuquet..... More
Item #4636

London: Abell Jeffes, 1591. Second and best edition of this important Elizabethan work on practical geometry, in which “for the first time, we have indications of an instrument which we may call a reflecting telescope” (King, The History of the Telescope, p. 29). This second edition contains several appendices by Thomas..... More
Item #5131

[London: Harrison & Sons for the Royal Society, 1926]. First edition, inscribed presentation offprint, of Dirac’s paper, which “is justly seen as a major contribution to quantum theory” (Kragh, p. 36). It introduced his quantum mechanical derivation of what is now called Fermi-Dirac statistics, which describes a distribution of particles..... More
Item #4390

Venice: Tomasso Baglioni, 1611. First edition, extremely rare, of this important early work on the optics of the telescope and related optical phenomena, and containing the first essentially correct theory of the rainbow to be published. Dominis and Galileo were both teaching mathematics and physics in Padua at the same..... More
Item #5287

Lancaster, PA: American Physical Society, 1945-46. First edition, extremely rare offprints, of Einstein & Straus’s introduction of the ‘Swiss-cheese’ model of the universe. “After [a] decade and a half of sometimes intense work on cosmology, Einstein returned to the subject only occasionally in his later years. His most significant later..... More
Item #5054