Lancaster, PA & New York, NY: American Physical Society, 1948. First edition, journal issue in original printed wrappers, and a virtually mint copy, of Feynman’s path-integral formulation of quantum mechanics, a “new formalism for quantum theory (presented in Feynman’s thesis) which … turned out to be the most powerful and..... More
Item #5061
Pasadena, CA: The California Institute of Technology, 1963. Extremely rare pre-publication issue of a section of Feynman’s legendary lectures on physics, namely that devoted to electromagnetism, from Maxwell’s equations to the optical and magnetic properties of materials, and concluding with four lectures on elasticity and fluid flow. According to the..... More
Item #5135
Vancouver: [np], 1975. A detailed draft for a talk given to the Canadian Association of Physics Students, in Vancouver, on the contemporary state of subatomic particle physics, its current difficulties and possible future developments. Although a ‘popular’ talk, it is pitched at a high level, appropriate to postgraduate students in physics..... More
Item #4859
[Lancaster, PA & New York, NY: American Institute of Physics for the American Physical Society, 1939]. First edition, extremely rare offprint, inscribed by Feynman, of Feynman’s senior undergraduate thesis at MIT, a fundamental discovery “that has played an important role in theoretical chemistry and condensed matter physics” (Selected Papers, p...... More
Item #4833
Pasadena, CA: California Institute of Technology, 1960. First edition, exceptionally rare offprint, signed by Feynman, of this visionary lecture which represents the birth of nanotechnology, the field of applied science involving manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale: ‘What I want to talk about is the problem of manipulating..... More
Item #5184
London: John Matthews, 1712. The true first edition, extremely rare, of Flamsteed’s catalogue of fixed stars and sextant observations, the foundation of modern observational astronomy; this copy was probably bound for Queen Anne (please see below). Flamsteed’s catalogue was far more extensive and accurate than anything that had gone before..... More
Item #5074
Paris: Bachelier, 1853. First edition, rare, and an exceptionally fine copy, of Foucault’s doctoral thesis on the speed of light, in which he provides a convincing proof for the wave theory of light. In the 1840s Foucault undertook a series of optical experiments using an apparatus of rotating mirrors to..... More
Item #4843
Paris: Bernard, 1808. First printing, extremely rare, of the discovery of Fourier series, and their application to the mathematical theory of heat, appearing here 14 years before Fourier’s famous Théorie analytique de la chaleur. “This work marks an epoch in the history of both pure and applied mathematics. It is the..... More
Item #5302
Venice: Heirs of Lucantonio Giunta, 1546. First edition of Fracastoro’s most important scientific work, forming “the foundation of all modern views on the nature of infectious diseases” (Heirs of Hippocrates 101). “The first scientific definition of contagion known and a competent discussion of causes of infection. Gives a clear account..... More
Item #5228
Lyon: Thibauld Payan, 1561. Second edition, almost four times the length of the first (1556), with 25 new illustrations including 22 instruments and three full skeletons. This is Franco’s major work, very rare, a copy in an untouched contemporary binding and with a fine provenance. “Pierre Franco, creator of suprapubic..... More
Item #4490
de l’Academie des Sciences de l’URSS, 1937. First edition, very rare offprint, of the explanation of Cherenkov radiation, for which Frank and Tamm shared (with Cherenkov) the Nobel Prize in Physics 1958. “In certain media the speed of light is lower than in a vacuum and particles can travel faster..... More
Item #5969
München: Lentner, [1817]. First edition, journal issue, of the founding work of astrophysics, the discovery of the absorption lines in the solar spectrum; the second plate, which reproduces Fraunhofer’s drawing of these lines (etched by Fraunhofer himself), is the first illustration of the solar spectrum. “In 1802, when describing his..... More
Item #5864
[Altona: Hammerich- und Heineking’schen Buchdruckerey, 1825]. First edition, extremely rare separately-paginated offprint (journal pagination 31-92), inscribed by Fraunhofer to John Herschel, of this work on atmospheric optical phenomena, including haloes and parhelia. “Fraunhofer had carried out experiments in 1825 with diffraction in disordered small gaps and particles, and developed the..... More
Item #5229
Jena: Hermann Pohle, 1891. First edition, very rare, of this important essay, in which Frege carried out a revision of his famous Begriffsschrift (1879), which was necessary in order to carry out his programme of reducing arithmetic to formal logic. Function und Begriff contains Frege’s two main innovations since the..... More
Item #3523
![Item #5410 [Dialogo] Systema cosmicum … in quo quatuor dialogis, de duobus maximis mundi...](https://sophiararebooks.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/5410.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&v=1630929651)
[Leiden &] Strassburg: David Hautt for Elzevir, 1635. First Latin edition of the Dialogo, Galileo’s celebrated defence of the Copernican view of the solar system, the most notorious banned book of the 17th century. Written in dialogue form, it “was designed both as an appeal to the great public and..... More
Item #5410
Florence: Condotta, 1674. The true first edition, very rare, signed and inscribed by Viviani to Edme Mariotte, of this important Galileanum, an assembly of previously unpublished writings by Galileo, together with texts by Torricelli and Viviani himself. Most importantly, it contains the first printing of a Galileo manuscript concerned with..... More
Item #5827
Florence: Cosimo Giunti, 1615. First edition, rare, from the Riccati library, of Galileo’s principal text on the controversy over floating bodies. This work was written as a reply to two attacks by Delle Colombe (1565-1623) and Di Grazia on Galileo’s 1612 treatise on floating bodies, Discorso … intorno alle cose..... More
Item #5769
Paris: Bachelier, 1846. First edition of Galois' collected mathematical works, for the most part previously unpublished. Their posthumous publication was due to Joseph Liouville, editor of the leading French journal on pure and applied mathematics. “There have been few mathematicians with personalities as engaging as that of Galois, who died..... More
Item #5255
Paris: Bachelier, 1846. First edition, a remarkable copy uncut in the original printed wrappers and very rare thus, of Galois' collected mathematical works, for the most part previously unpublished. Their posthumous publication was due to Joseph Liouville, editor of the leading French journal on pure and applied mathematics. “There have..... More
Item #5819
London: Royal Society, 1888. First edition, journal issue in original printed wrappers, of Galton’s invention of the statistical concept of correlation, one of the most “fundamental and ubiquitous” ideas in statistics (Stigler, p. 73). “Like all major scientific discoveries, correlation did not appear in a vacuum. It was a concluding..... More
Item #4698
Göttingen: Dieterich, 1818. First edition, very rare separately-paginated offprint, preceding the journal appearance in Commentationes Societatis Regiae Scientiarum Gottingensis (vol. 4, pp. 21-48) by two years. “In his first years at Göttingen, Gauss experienced a second upsurge of ideas and publications in various fields of mathematics. Among the latter were several..... More
Item #5312
Göttingen: Dieterich, 1830. First edition, the rare separately-paginated offprint, and a fine copy in original state, of this early contribution of Gauss (1777-1855) to mathematical physics, which contains a fundamental and groundbreaking contribution to the calculus of variations. “Gauss ranks, together with Archimedes and Newton, as one of the greatest..... More
Item #5927
Göttingen: Dieterich, 1823-1828. First edition, extremely rare separately-paginated offprints, of Gauss’s definitive presentation of the theory of least squares which “was the dominant theme – the leitmotif – of nineteenth-century mathematical statistics” (Stigler, p. 11). “Surveying problems motivated Gauss to develop his ideas on least squares and more general problems..... More
Item #5422
London: William Jones, 1635. First edition, extremely rare, of Gellibrand’s most important discovery: the secular change in magnetic declination, or variation. According to William Gilbert in his De Magnete (1600), the existence of magnetic declination, the difference in direction between geographical and magnetic north, is a result of the magnetic..... More
Item #5121
Zürich: Jacob Gesner, 1565 [–1566]. First edition and a fine copy in contemporary binding, very rare when complete, of this collection of eight treatises, the most important being De rerum fossilium [On fossil Objects], Gesner’s last work, the earliest scientific attempt to classify the mineral kingdom, and the first illustrated..... More
Item #5001