Messina: Pietro Spira, 1558. First edition, ‘excessively rare’ (Sotheran, 1917), of Maurolico’s Latin translations of works on ‘sphaerics’ by four ancient Greek writers, Autolycus, Menelaus, Euclid and Theodosius, those of the first two authors constituting the first printed editions. Maurolico, one of the most original mathematicians of the 16th century..... More about Theodosii sphaericorum elementorum libri III ex traditione Maurolyci, Messanensis Mathematici....
Item #2881

[London:]: Taylor and Francis, [1867]. First edition, in the very rare original printed wrappers, of the first practical designs for a dynamo, made independently and almost simultaneously by Siemens and Wheatstone. Maxwell attended the February 1867 meeting of the Royal Society at which both papers were read, and he immediately... More about On the Theory of the Maintenance of Electric Currents by Mechanical Work without the use of...
Item #4305

Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873. First edition, first issue, and a very fine copy in a contemporary prize binding, of Maxwell’s presentation of his theory of electromagnetism, advancing ideas that would become essential for modern physics, including the landmark “hypothesis that light and electricity are the same in their ultimate nature”..... More about A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism.
Item #4727

Pesaro; Bologna: apud Hieronymum Concordiam; Costantino Pisarri, 1588 [colophon, 1587]; 1711. First edition, the beautiful Macclesfield copy, of Guidobaldo’s Paraphrasis, the important companion to his Mechanicorum liber (1577), regarded as the greatest work on statics since the Greeks, which employed the mathematically rigorous proofs of Archimedes to the investigation of... More about In duos Archimedis Aequeponderantium libros paraphrasis scholijs illustrata. Pesaro: apud...
Item #4716

Paris: Jean Dedin, 1631-39. Extremely rare first edition, author’s presentation copy, of all four books of this important work on conic sections, intended to provide the geometrical basis for the study of optics. “Mydorge’s work on conic sections contains hundreds of problems published for the first time, as well as..... More about Prodromi catoptricorum et dioptricorum, sive conicorum operis ad abdita radii reflexi et refracti...
Item #3576

Leipzig: Grossius and J.F. Gleditsch, 1688. First edition of the important Acta Eruditorum review of the Principia. There were four reviews of the Principia, of which this is chronologically the third. It is “the most detailed and serious of the four reviews. It was comprehensive enough to provide many people..... More about Isaaci Newton, Matheseos Professoris Cantabrigiensis, & Regiae Societatis Anglicanae Socii,...
Item #4463

London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley, 1756. First printing, very rare, of these letters of Newton which Koyré has described as “one of the most precious and important documents for the study and interpretation of Newtonian thought” (Koyré, p. 202). Newton here gives his views on the nature of..... More about Four Letters ... to Doctor Bentley.
Item #3537

Paris: for the author, 1588. First edition, a magnificent copy bound in contemporary gilt vellum, and with outstanding provenance, of one of the most famous illustrated books of the sixteenth century and a landmark in book design. “The plates in Ramelli’s treatise are artistically as well as technologically superb, the..... More about Le Diverse et Artifiose Machine... Nelle quali si contengono varii et industriosi Movimenti,...
Item #3694

Important letter from Rutherford to Charles Herman Viol requesting information about the production of radium, in preparation for a series of lectures he was to deliver at The Royal Institution. “From 1921, when he succeeded [J. J.] Thomson, until his death, Rutherford was professor of natural philosophy at the Royal... More about Autograph letter signed ‘E Rutherford’ to Charles Herman Viol, 8 January 1921. Three pages on...
Item #3663

Nuremberg: Simon Halbmayer, 1627. First complete edition and the first edition of the fourth part (the first part was published in 1616, the first three parts together in 1618). The first book is a treatise on general mathematics and the principles of geometry. The second deals entirely with techniques of... More about Geometriae Practicae Novae.
Item #2235

Leiden: George Abrahamsz van Maarssen for Jodocus Colster, 1617. First edition of Snel’s most important work. This was “the foundation of modern geodesy” (Galileo Project) and of great significance in the history of navigation. “With the development of their oceanic commerce, the Dutch became very interested in the most accurate..... More about Eratosthenes Batavus, de terræ ambitus vera quantitate a Willebrordo Snellio, Δια των εξ...
Item #4229

Leiden: Ex officina Plantiniana apud Christophorum Raphelengium. Academiae Lugduno-Batavae Typographum, 1599. First Latin edition of Stevin’s extremely rare and important work on the determination of longitude using magnetic variation. Originally published in Dutch as De Havenvinding, “the [Latin] translation appeared almost simultaneously with the original Dutch version” (Crone et al...... More about Limenheuretica [Greek], sive porluum investigandorum ratio. Metaphraste Hug. Grotio Batavo.
Item #3954

Cologne: Johann Birkmann, 1562. First edition of this exceptionally rare, interesting, and notorious work – the second printed work on magnetism, preceded only by the Epistola de magnete of Peregrinus (1558) (which is virtually unobtainable). Taisnier’s work, in fact, contains a plagiarism of Peregrinus, which it reprints verbatim, and of... More about Opusculum perpetua memoria dignissimum, De natura magnetis, et eius effectibus …
Item #4307