Florence: In officina Iuntarum, Bernardi filiorum, 1567. First edition, very rare, of the only surviving work of Hipparchus (c. 190-127 BC). “Even the most casual discussion of ancient astronomy will not fail to call Hipparchus of Nicaea in Bithynia ‘the greatest astronomer of antiquity’ (Otto Neugebauer, ‘Notes on Hipparchus,’ Astronomy..... More about Hipparchi Bithyni in Arati et Eudoxi Phaenomena libri III; eiusdem libri asterismorum; Achillis...
Item #3643

Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1874. First edition, rare, of the doctoral thesis of “the greatest woman mathematician prior to the twentieth century” (DSB) and the first woman in Europe to obtain a doctorate in mathematics. The thesis contains what is now called the ‘Cauchy-Kowalevsky’ theorem on the existence of solutions of..... More about Zur Theorie der partiellen Differentialgleichungen
Item #4203

Paris: Duprat, 1802. A fine copy of this influential text, which according to Babbage was "so perfect that any comment was unnecassary". "In discussing with a friend the formation of a section of the British and Foreign Bible Society, a society which had the distribution of Bibles as its mission... More about Traité Élémentaire de Calcul Différential et de Calcul Intégral; Précédé de réflexions...
Item #2252

Paris: H. Estienne & W. Hopyl, 27 June 1503. First edition of this very rare collection of works, in an attractive Roger Payne binding. The individual works are all first editions with the exception of Lefèvre’s Epitome of Boethius’ De arithmetica (first, 1496) and an unattributed Opusculum de p[r]axi numerorum..... More about Josse. Epitome compendiosaq[ue] introductio in libros arithmeticos divi Severini Boetii...
Item #3866

Kazan: Universitetskai a tip. 1835. First edition, incredibly rare offprint, of this important book-length memoir on the foundations of calculus and real analysis by the first inventor of non-euclidean geometry. “As early as 1835, Lobachevsky showed in a memoir [the offered work] the necessity of distinguishing between continuity and differentiability”... More about Sposob uviersit'sia v izchezanii bezkonechnykh strok i priblizhat'sia k znacheniiu funktsii ot...
Item #3652

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 about An Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries, in Four Books
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 about A Treatise of Fluxions. In Two Books
Item #4222

Venice: Franciscum Franciscium Senensem, 1575. First and only edition (see Rara Aritmetica) of the first clear statement of the principle of mathematical induction. “Francesco Maurolico is generally recognized to have been one of the foremost mathematicians of the sixteenth century” (Rosen); Cajori has called him ‘the greatest geometer of the..... More about Opuscula mathematica; nunc primum in lucem aedita, cum rerum omnium notatu dignarum. Indice...
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 about Raum und Zeit
Item #4418

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 about Mirifici logarithmorum canonis constructio; et eorum ad naturales ipsorum numeros habitudines;...
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..... More about Arithmetica Universalis; sive de Compositione et Resolutione Arithmetica Liber. Ciu accessit...
Item #4064

Berlin: Springer, 1921. First edition, very rare offprint, of one of the most important works of “the most significant creative mathematical genius thus far produced since the higher education of women began” (Einstein, obituary in The New York Times, May 5, 1935). In the same year, but before she died... More about Idealtheorie in Ringbereichen
Item #4769

Paris: Guillaume Desprez, 1659. First edition, extremely rare (one of about 120 copies printed), of one of Pascal’s most brilliant works. “Édition originale, extrêmement rare, de la dernière œuvre de Pascal, l’une des plus éclatantes de son génie” (Lucien Scheler in Tchemerzine, V, pp. 54-55). “Pascal devoted himself during 1658..... More about Lettres de A[mos] Dettonville contenant Quelques-unes de ses Inventions de Géométrie. Sçavoir...
Item #4403