Paris: Firmin Didot, 1822. First edition of the first mathematical study of heat diffusion, the first major mathematization of a branch of physics outside mechanics. “This work marks an epoch in the history of both pure and applied mathematics. It is the source of all modern methods in mathematical physics..... More
Item #3841
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
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
Florence: Landini, 1632. First edition; all of the errata found on the errata leaf have been meticulously corrected in the text by the owner, who in assembling the volume discarded the errata leaf and added the additional texts as detailed below. The frontispiece is an excellent early impression with rich..... More
Item #5082
![Item #5410 [Dialogo] Systema cosmicum … in quo quatuor dialogis, de duobus maximis mundi...](/pictures/thumb/5410.jpg?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
Frankfurt: [Zacharias] Palthenius, 1610; 1611. Second edition of Galileo’s magnum opus, published just a few months after the original printing at Venice on March 10, 1610. “Galileo’s book created excitement throughout Europe and a second edition was published in the same year at Frankfurt” (DSB). This edition of Sidereus nuncius..... More
Item #5062
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
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
[Colophon:] Antwerp: G[regorius de] Bonte & Louvain: P[ierre] Phalèse, 1545. First edition, very rare, of Gemma Frisius’s remarkable astronomical treatise, the most significant early text on the astronomer’s cross-staff, with an early favourable discussion of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus (1543), and the first printed illustration of the camera obscura – Tycho..... More
Item #4956
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
Rome: Camera Apostolica, 1630. First edition, extremely rare, and a magnificent copy from the library of Kenelm Digby, of the most important work of the great Croatian mathematician Marino Ghetaldi (or Marin Getaldić) who, while he did not introduce coordinates, is regarded by many scholars, on the basis of the..... More
Item #5465
![Item #4853 Elements of Vector Analysis. [Offered with:] Autograph letter from Gibbs to John...](/pictures/thumb/4853.jpg?v=1597316185)
New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1881. First edition, first issue (see below), of this extremely rare pamphlet which “marks the beginning of modern vector analysis” (Crowe, p. 150). “Nearly all branches of classical physics and many areas of modern physics are now presented in the language of vectors, and..... More
Item #4853
London: Peter Short, 1600. First edition of “the first major English scientific treatise based on experimental methods of research. Gilbert was chiefly concerned with magnetism; but as a digression he discusses in his second book the attractive effect of amber (electrum), and thus may be regarded as the founder of..... More
Item #4577
Paris: Chez l'autheur, 1663. First edition, rare, of this very important chemistry text, which went through some thirteen editions between 1663 and 1710. “The Traité is Glaser’s only publication. Printed in a small number at the author’s expense, the first edition was sold from his house. Rapidly becoming a best..... More
Item #3412
London: William du Gard for Laurence Sadler and Robert Beaumont, 1650. First edition, co-author’s copy, of the first full clinical description of rickets, then thought to have appeared only recently in England, and the first description of infantile scurvy. “In 1645 the Royal College of Physicians assigned to Glisson, Bate..... More
Item #5420
Berlin: Springer, 1926. First edition of Gordon’s account of the ‘Klein-Gordon equation’ (‘KG equation’ in what follows), the first attempt at unifying wave mechanics with special relativity. The KG equation was discovered by several authors independently, the first being the Swedish physicist Oskar Klein, although the equation appeared only incidentally..... More
Item #4497
[Leyden]: in bibliopolio Commeliniano sumptibus viduae Joannis Comelini, 1620. First edition, extremely rare, of one of the earliest modern works on atomism. “Gorlaeus is counted among the founders of modern atomism, which he proposed as an alternative to Aristotelian matter theory. Because of his notion of atomic compounds, he is..... More
Item #4573