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
London: Jacob Flesher for William Morden, 1653. First edition of this collection, comprising the first printing in England of each of these texts; this is the second edition of Gassendi (first, Paris 1647), the third of Galileo (after Venice and Frankfurt, 1610), and the second of Kepler (first, Augsburg 1611)..... More
Item #5015
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
[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
Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre, 1695. First edition of this very rare work, famous today for its suggestion that an achromatic compound lens might be formed by combining simples lenses of different media. The use of ‘achromatic doublets’ was a crucial step in the further development of telescopes and microscopes. The passage..... More
Item #3190
Bologna: heirs of Vittorio Benacci for Girolamo Bernia, 1665. First edition, rare, of Grimaldi’s only book, in which he describes his discovery of the diffraction of light, “a new mode of transmission of light [that] contradicts the notion of an exclusively rectilinear passage of light” (DSB). This is perhaps the..... More
Item #3397
Amsterdam: Johanned Jansson Waesberge, 1672. First edition, and a fine copy, of one of the great classics of science. “A book of prime importance in electrical discovery, air-pressure and the vacuum pump” (Dibner). Guericke proved the existence of a vacuum through his famous experiment, illustrated by one of the double-page..... More
Item #3763
Nuremberg: printed by Christoph Gerhard for Paulus Fürst, 1666. First edition of one of the most beautiful instrument books published in the seventeenth century and certainly one of the rarest, particularly with the full complement of plates. This work is an enlargement, by his student Sturm, of Habrecht’s famous treatise..... More
Item #4705
Paris: J. Anisson, 1694. First edition, rare, of Hartsoeker's first and most important work, in which he reviewed the principles of optics as far as they were known by the end of the 17th century. In addition to the physics of light and the physiology of vision, the book also..... More
Item #4518
Paris: Gogué & Née de la Rochelle, 1784. First edition of Haüy’s first printed book, an exceptionally fine copy, very rare in this condition. “The foundation of the mathematical theory of crystal structure. Haüy proposed six types of primary crystal forms (parallelpiped, rhombic dodecahedron, hexagonal dipyramid, right hexagonal prism, octahedron..... More
Item #4871
Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1882-1883. First edition, extremely rare author’s presentation offprints, of all three parts of one of the founding paper of chemical thermodynamics, along with Josiah Willard Gibbs’s 1876 paper ‘On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances.’ In these papers, Helmholtz introduced the concept of ‘free energy’ and proved..... More
Item #5192
Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1847. First edition, rare, of “the first comprehensive statement of the first law of thermodynamics: that all modes of energy, heat, light, electricity, and all chemical phenomena, are capable of transformation from one to the other but are indestructible and cannot be created” (PMM). “On the basis..... More
Item #4842
Philadelphia: Printed by James Kay, Jun. & Brothers, 1839. First edition, author’s presentation offprint, of the third and most important part of Henry’s Contributions to Electricity and Magnetism. Following on from his discovery of electromagnetic self-induction in 1832, in the present paper Henry extends his results on ‘galvanic’ electricity (current..... More
Item #4282
Amsterdam: Apud Rod. & Gerh. Wetstenios, 1716. First edition of the first textbook on theoretical mechanics based on the Leibnizian calculus, important for containing the first published discussion of the kinetic theory of gases. “This textbook concerned advanced mechanics in the modern sense and was considered an important work, very..... More
Item #4289
London: R. & J. E. Taylor, 1842. First edition, extremely rare offprint, of this seminal early work of photography, the invention of the world’s first photocopying process, ‘cyanotype,’ later called ‘blue-printing’; this remained by far the most important reprographic process for more than a century after the publication of Herschel’s..... More
Item #4782
[1813-1850]. An extraordinary collection of works by Sir John Herschel (1792-1871), the outstanding astronomer and physical scientist of his day, assembled for presentation to his son William James Herschel (not to be confused with John’s father, the astronomer Frederick William). The collection includes offprints of Herschel’s three most important publications..... More
Item #4321
Leiden: Eduard Ijdo, 1911. First printing of the first announcement of the discovery of superconductivity, the disappearance of electrical resistance in certain materials at very low temperatures. “Of all the discoveries in condensed matter physics during the 20th century, some might call superconductivity the “crown jewel”. Others might say that..... More
Item #3538
Rome: Sumptibus Hermanni Scheus, ex typographia Ludovici Grignani, 1646. First edition of Kircher’s principal contribution to optics, treating light, shadow, colour, refraction, projection, distortion and luminescence, and providing early descriptions of the camera obscura and magic lantern. The work also includes some of the earliest observations with a microscope, preceding..... More
Item #4288
Paris: de l'Imprimerie Royale, 1751; 1747. First edition of the official account of the scientific operations undertaken during the author’s famous geodetic mission to Peru, in conjunction with Bouguer and Godin, to measure the meridian near the equator, and so settle the controversy between the Cartesians and Newtonians as to..... More
Item #3484
![Méchanique analitique. [Bound with:] Théorie des fonctions analytiques. Joseph Louis de LAGRANGE](/pictures/thumb/4300.jpg?v=1592229068)
Paris; Paris: Veuve Desaint; de l’Imprimerie de la République, 1788; An V [1797]. An exceptional volume, in a fine contemporary binding, containing the first edition of Lagrange’s masterpiece, the Méchanique, “one of the outstanding landmarks in the history of both mathematics and mechanics” (Sarton, p. 470) and “perhaps the most..... More
Item #4300
The Hague: H. Scheurleer, 1758. First edition, extremely rare, of Lambert’s first published book, dealing with the path of light rays in air and other media. Lambert began working on aspects of refraction through the atmosphere in 1752, and from 1754 this work was carried out in parallel with his..... More
Item #4514
Augsburg: Christoph Peter Detleffsen for the widow of Eberhard Klett, 1760. First edition, and a remarkably fine copy, of this cornerstone of modern optics, with applications which touch on astronomy and photography; this is one of the rarest of modern science books of this stature. “It established a complete system..... More
Item #4778
![Josse. Epitome compendiosaq[ue] introductio in libros arithmeticos divi Severini Boetii...](/pictures/thumb/3866.jpg?v=1592228756)
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
Item #3866
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