Münich: Lentner, [1822?]. First edition, the rare offprint issue, of the first quantitative discussion of the diffraction of light. Four years earlier, Fraunhofer had published his epochal discovery of dark lines in the solar spectrum, now called ‘Fraunhofer lines,’ which inaugurated the fields of spectroscopy and astrophysics. “In 1821 and..... More
Item #4436
[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 [actually Naples]: N. p., 1710. First edition, very rare large-paper copy, of the second vernacular edition of Galileo’s famous Dialogo sopra i massimi sistemi del mondo (a page-by-page reprint of the first edition). The Dialogo is Galileo’s celebrated defence of the Copernican view of the solar system. Written in..... More
Item #5281
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
Leiden: Elzevier, 1638. First edition, a fine copy in untouched contemporary vellum, of Galileo’s last and most important work, “the first modern textbook of physics, a foundation stone in the science of mechanics” (Grolier/Horblit); the ‘two new sciences’ were the engineering science of strength of materials and the mathematical science of..... More
Item #4985
Strasbourg; Leiden: Elzevier; Elzevier, 1636; 1638. First edition of a great Galilean rarity, the Nov-Antiqua or ‘Letter to Christina’, with the first edition of his most important work, the Discorsi, together in a magnificent contemporary armorial binding executed for the Archbishop of Reims. The Nov-Antiqua is a “superb manifesto of..... More
Item #4995
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 pirate edition of Sidereus..... More
Item #5062
Rome: Nicolò Angelo Tinassi, for Domenico Grialdi, 1656. First edition, very rare, and probably a presentation copy, of one of Galileo’s earliest works, probably composed around 1590, and of particular interest for the development of his scientific method prior to 1610 and the publication of Sidereus nuncius. The Sfera gives..... More
Item #5280
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
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
Bologna: Press of the Academy of Sciences, 1791. First edition, incredibly rare offprint, one of 12 copies issued, of this epoch-making work, one of the most important in the history of electricity. Galvani’s paper was published in one of the ‘Opuscula’ of the journal De Bononiensi scientiarum et artium instituto..... More
Item #4822
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
Leipzig: Gerh. Fleischer, 1801. First edition, rare, of Gauss’ masterpiece, “a book that begins a new epoch in mathematics … Gauss ranks, together with Archimedes and Newton, as one of the greatest geniuses in the history of mathematics” (PMM). “Published when Gauss was just twenty-four, Disquisitiones arithmeticae revolutionized number theory..... More
Item #4572
Göttingen: Dieterich, 1828. First edition, the very rare separately-paginated offprint from Commentationes Societatis Regiae Scientiarum Göttingensis (Vol. VI, 1828, pp. 99-146), of this “masterpiece of the mathematical literature” (Zeidler, p. 16). This is an exceptionally fine copy, uncut in its original plain wrappers. “The single most important work in the..... More
Item #5288
Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes and I.H. Besser, 1809. First edition of the work which, “with the Disquisitiones [Arithmeticae, 1801], established his reputation as a mathematical and scientific genius of the first order” (DSB). “The Theoria motus will always be classed among those great works the appearance of which forms an epoch..... More
Item #5365
Göttingen: Dieterich, 1811, 1813, 1816, 1820, 1828. First editions, journal issues, of thirteen important papers by Gauss, including works on the fundamental theorem of algebra, number theory, hypergeometric functions, approximation theory, differential geometry, gravitation, and celestial mechanics. “Gauss ranks, together with Archimedes and Newton, as one of the greatest geniuses..... More
Item #4298
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
![Elements of Vector Analysis. [Offered with:] Autograph letter from Gibbs to John Monroe Van...](/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
Salem, Mass. Salem Press, 1886. First edition, very rare offprint issue. “One of Gibbs’ most famous papers was entitled ‘On Multiple Algebra.’ It was given as an ‘Address before the Section of Mathematics and Astronomy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, by the Vice-President’ and was published..... More
Item #4433
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
![A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes [with:] Liquid Propellant Rocket Development. Robert...](/pictures/thumb/4854.jpg?v=1597319703)
Washington D.C. Smithsonian Institution, 1919 & 1936. First edition, presentation copies in the original printed wrappers, inscribed by Goddard, and with a highly important association, of the most influential early works on rocketry, which provided the foundation for the modern space age. “Having explored the mathematical practicality of rocketry since..... More
Item #4854
Leipzig & Berlin: B.G. Teubner & F. Deuticke, 1931-1937. First editions, and a fine complete set in the original printed wrappers, of all eight issues of these proceedings to which Gödel contributed thirteen important papers and remarks on the foundations of logic and mathematics. The last three issues are particularly..... More
Item #4846