Paris: Bernard, 1808. First printing, extremely rare, of the discovery of Fourier series, and their application to the mathematical theory of heat, appearing here 14 years before Fourier’s famous Théorie analytique de la chaleur. “This work marks an epoch in the history of both pure and applied mathematics. It is the..... More
Item #5302

Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1824 & 1826. First printing of Fourier’s prize essay on Fourier series, and their application to the mathematical theory of heat, composed some five years before his epoch-making Théorie analytique de la chaleur. “The mathematical parts of this paper were expanded into Fourier’s most famous work, the Théorie analytique..... More
Item #5301

Leiden: Elzevier, 1638. First edition, a fine copy in untouched contemporary vellum, of Galileo’s last and most important work, “the first modern textbook of physics, a foundation stone in the science of mechanics” (Grolier/Horblit); the ‘two new sciences’ were the engineering science of strength of materials and the mathematical science of..... More
Item #4985

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: William Jones, 1635. First edition, extremely rare, of Gellibrand’s most important discovery: the secular change in magnetic declination, or variation. According to William Gilbert in his De Magnete (1600), the existence of magnetic declination, the difference in direction between geographical and magnetic north, is a result of the magnetic..... More
Item #5121

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

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

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

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

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

Leiden: Pieter van der Aa, 1690. First edition, probable second issue with Huygens’s full name on title, of Huygens’ path-breaking exposition of his wave or pulse theory of light. Huygens had developed his theory of light in 1676 and 1677, and “completed the Traité in 1678, but left it unpublished for..... More
Item #5350