Leipzig: Christopher Günther for J. Gross & J. F. Gleditsch, 1684. First edition of Leibniz’s invention of the differential calculus. “Leibniz was an almost universal genius whose place in the history of mathematics depends on his being an independent inventor of the infinitesimal calculus and on his contributions to combinatorial..... More
Item #4735

London: Printed by S[arah]. G[riffin]. and B[ennet]. G[riffin]. for Benjamin Tooke and Thomas Sawbridge, [1669]. First edition, first issue, extremely rare, of the first of Leybourn’s books on the subject. This issue has ‘dialling:’ in line 2 of the title and lacks imprint date; the more common (but still rare)..... More
Item #4610

Lyons: Jacob Marechal for Simon Vincent, 5 May 1517. Third edition, the first edited by the Lullist Bernard de Lavinheta (d. ca. 1530), of the Ars Magna, his greatest work, now recognised as perhaps the first work in computer science. “Lull invented an ‘art of finding truth’ which inspired Leibniz's..... More
Item #4363

London: Printed for the author’s children and sold by A. Millar, et al. 1748. First edition, large-paper copy, of Maclaurin’s statement of Newtonian theory, one of the three “most outstanding popular introductions to Newtonian science of the eighteenth century” (I. B. Cohen, Franklin and Newton, 1956, p. 209). “Though a...... More
Item #3409

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

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

Leipzig: F.W. Vogel, 1909. First edition of Minkowski’s famous lecture on his theory of four-dimensional space-time, the first published account of this theory to be illustrated with ‘spacetime diagrams’, which were widely used later by Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and others in the development of general relativity. “In ‘Space and..... More
Item #5048

Edinburgh; Padua: Andrew Hart; Giacomo Cadorino, 1619; [1667]. First edition, extremely rare, of this complement to Napier’s epoch-making Mirifici logorithmorum canonis descriptio (1614) – while the Descriptio gave the first ever table of logarithms, it was in the Constructio that Napier explained the method of their construction. It is here..... More
Item #4638

Cambridge; London: Typis Academicus; Benjamin Tooke, 1707. First edition of Newton’s treatise on algebra, or ‘universal arithmetic,’ his “most often read and republished mathematical work” (Whiteside). “Included are ‘Newton’s identities’ providing expressions for the sums of the ith powers of the roots of any polynomial equation, for any integer i...... More
Item #4639

Antwerp: heirs of Arnold Birckman, 1567. First edition, one of two issues published in the same year, of this rare and celebrated treatise on algebra, and a copy with outstanding provenance. Scientific books in de Thou bindings rarely appear on the market. “Considered the greatest of Portuguese mathematicians, Nuñez reveals..... More
Item #3645

Cologne [Paris]: Pierre de la Vallée, [1656-]1657; 1659. First edition, and a beautiful copy, of Pascal’s 18 Provincial letters, bound with two extremely rare works relating to Pascal. “The Lettres Provinciales, as they are called, are the first example of French prose as we know it today, perfectly finished in..... More
Item #3426

Turin: Bocca Brothers, 1888. First edition, rare. “Calcolo Geometrico, G. Peano’s first publication in mathematical logic, is a model of expository writing, with a significant impact on 20th century mathematics” (Kannenberg). It may be regarded (in part) as a preliminary version of his more famous work Arithmetices Principia, published in..... More
Item #4029

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1879. First edition, extremely rare, of Poincaré’s thesis for his doctorate in science from the University of Paris. “Poincaré’s doctoral thesis [was] on differential equations (not on methods of solution, but on existence theorems), which led to one of his most celebrated contributions to mathematics-the properties of automorphic..... More
Item #2928