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
London: for William and John Innys, 1720. First edition, very rare in commerce, of Maclaurin’s first book, dedicated to Newton and bearing his imprimatur as president of the Royal Society; this is a presentation copy, inscribed by Maclaurin. Maclaurin is best known for his Treatise of Fluxions (1742), “the earliest..... More
Item #5250
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
Florence: Giuseppe Cocchini, 1666 (dedication dated 14 July, 1667). First edition, the rare first issue, and owing to the magnificent contemporary Italian red morocco binding, a presentation copy (see below), of the only publication of the Accademia del Cimento, the first organisation founded for the sole purpose of making scientific..... More
Item #4707
Messina: Pietro Spira, August 1558. First edition, ‘excessively rare’ (Sotheran), of this collection of works on ‘spherics’, the geometrical and trigonometrical techniques necessary for the description of the motion of the celestial bodies, including Maurolico’s Latin translations of works by four ancient Greek writers, Autolycus, Menelaus, Euclid and Theodosius, those..... More
Item #2881
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
Paris: J. Quilau, 1708. A fine copy, of the first separately published textbook of probability. “In 1708 [Montmort] published his work on Chances, where with the courage of Columbus he revealed a new world to mathematicians” (Todhunter, p. 78). “The Essay (1708) is the first published comprehensive text on probability..... More
Item #3894
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
Edinburgh: Andrew Hart, 1617. First edition, very rare, of one of the earliest mechanical calculating devices, using little rods of wood or ivory now known as ‘Napier’s bones’. Napier is best known today for his invention of logarithms, published in 1614 as Mirifici logarithmorum canonis decsriptio, the most important aid..... More
Item #5172
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956. First edition of Nash’s most famous work in pure mathematics, his solution of “a deep philosophical problem concerning geometry”, first posed by Bernhard Riemann, “one of the most important pieces of mathematical analysis in this century” which “has completely changed the perspective on partial differential..... More
Item #3536
London: for Benjamin Motte, 1729. First edition in English of the Principia, the magnificent Jones-Macclesfield large paper copy in contemporary morocco; with its important provenance, this is surely the most desirable copy in private hands. The first edition was published in Latin in 1687 and “is generally described as the greatest..... More
Item #5105
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
London: Allde, for Astley, 1562 [i.e., 1592]. Third edition (first, 1581) of one of the greatest rarities in the entire literature of navigation and magnetism, and “one of the first truly scientific books published in England” (Waters, The Art of Navigation, p. 153). “It is usual to ascribe to Galileo..... More
Item #4986
![Su[m]ma de arithmetica geometria proportioni et proportionalità. Luca PACIOLI, Lucas de Burgo S....](/pictures/thumb/4844.jpg?v=1613993287)
[Colophon:] Venice: Paganinus de Paganinis, 10-20 November 1494. First edition, first issue (see below), very rare, this is a remarkable copy in entirely original condition and with a distinguished provenance, having been in the famous Giustiniani family from publication to the present day. The Summa is a work of enormous..... More
Item #4844
Pesaro: Girolamo Concordia, 1588. First edition of Pappus' Collection, translated with commentary by Federico Commandino, a princely copy from the notable collection of the great Papal family and patrons of learning, the Piccolomini, Dukes of Amalfi, thence by marriage to the German nobleman von Troilo. The Collection is “by far..... More
Item #5234
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, 1889. First edition, and a fine copy in the original printed wrappers, of Peano’s most important work, which contains the first statement of the famous ‘Peano axioms’ for the natural numbers and which remains of seminal importance to mathematics and mathematical logic. “Peano’s most important contribution to..... More
Item #4539
Paris: Gauthier-Villars et Fils, 1892. First edition of Poincaré’s first paper on topology, which gave birth to the subject in its modern sense. “One of the most unexpected developments in twentieth-century mathematics has been the meteoric rise of the subject known as topology. Topology is sometimes described as ‘rubber-sheet geometry’..... More
Item #3776
Paris: Bachelier, 1835. First edition, presentation copy inscribed by Poisson to Marie Jean Pierre Flourens, of this classic work on the mathematical theory of heat conduction. “Poisson scored a point in this work by demonstrating how the conductibility of heat in the interior of bodies, far from being contained in..... More
Item #5242
![Ueber die Hypothesen, welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen. [With:] Über die Darstellbarkeit...](/pictures/thumb/5132.jpg?v=1604575778)
Göttingen: Dieterich, 1867. First edition, very rare separately-paginated offprints, of these two landmark papers: Riemann’s celebrated Habilitationsvortrag on the foundations of geometry which “did more to change our ideas about geometry and physical space than any work on the subject since Euclid’s Elements” (Gray, p. 507); bound with his famous..... More
Item #5132
Göttingen: E. A. Huth, 1851. Very rare first edition of Riemann’s Dissertation, “one of the most important achievements of 19th century mathematics” (Laugwitz), “which marked a new era in the development of the theory of analytic functions” (Kolmogorov & Yushkevich, p. 199), introducing geometric and topological methods, notably the idea..... More
Item #4523
Leipzig: Jakob Bärwald, 1550. First edition, rare, of Riese’s last, and most comprehensive, arithmetic text. “Riese (1492-1559), while not the first Rechenmeister to publish an arithmetic book in Germany, was by far the most famous and influential. His works went through at least one hundred editions and were used in..... More
Item #5199
![Caption title:] De proportione proportionum disputatio. Volumnius RODULPHUS, or RIDOLFI or RODOLPHUS](/pictures/thumb/3078.jpg?v=1592228657)
[Colophon:] Rome: Giacomo Mazzochi, 27 September 1516. First edition, exceptionally rare, of this influential and controversial but under-studied work, an important step towards the arithmetization of the mediaeval theory of proportion, which was a crucial first step in the increasing mathematization of the description of nature. In the Eudoxian theory..... More
Item #3078
Bologne: Stamperia di S. Tommaso d’Aquino, 1799. First edition, very rare, of the first statement and proof that the general equation of degree five or more cannot be solved algebraically. This is a remarkable author’s presentation copy, uncut in the publisher’s printed wrappers. “One of the most fascinating results in..... More
Item #4780
Leyden: Jan Paedts Jacobsz, 1608-05-05-08. Very rare first edition in French of this collection of works, which was published almost simultaneously in Dutch, French and Latin. They deal, among other topics, with geometry, trigonometry, perspective, and double-entry book-keeping – Stevin was one of the first authors to compose a treatise..... More
Item #4588