London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1876. First edition, rare on the market in this condition, of Maxwell's textbook on dynamics, “a masterpiece of natural philosophy, notable especially for introducing into physics the term relativity in a passage that combines strenuous scientific insight with a mystical awareness … [It] had..... More
Item #3849
[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
Item #4305
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873. First edition, first issue, from the library of an important 19th century electrical engineer, 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
Item #5293
London: for Benj. Tooke, 1692. First edition of the first treatise on optics in English, “which for many years served as the standard textbook on lenses” (Albury, p. 455); it includes at the end the first publication of Halley’s famous theorem for finding the focal length of a spherical lens..... More
Item #5246
Pesaro: Hieronymus Concordia, 1577. First edition of the author’s first work, generally regarded as the most important treatise on mechanics since Archimedes and a critical influence on Monte’s friend and disciple Galileo."From the time of its publication in 1577, [it was] the most authoritative treatise on statics to emerge since..... More
Item #5398
Pesaro: Girolamo Concordia, 1579. First edition, very rare, the Jones-Macclesfield copy, signed by William Jones, of the first modern theoretical treatise on the planisphere, an instrument for representing the celestial sphere on a plane surface. Guidobaldo was one of the most prominent figures in the renaissance of the mathematical sciences..... More
Item #5426
Venice: Evangelisto Deuchino, 1615. First edition, the Macclesfield copy, of this very rare and important work of Renaissance engineering and mathematics, Guidobaldo’s analysis of the theory and operation of Archimedes’ most famous mechanical invention, the ‘cochlea’ or ‘Archimedean screw’. This is a device used for raising water consisting of a...... More
Item #5425
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
Item #4716
Paris: Jean Dedin, 1631-39. First edition, extremely rare 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
Item #3576
Leipzig & Berlin: Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig & Springer, 1869-1921. A remarkable collection of offprints, a major portion of the published works of Carl Gottfried Neumann (1832-1925), representing virtually all of the areas to which he contributed, most importantly the related fields of electromagnetism and potential theory. His lasting..... More
Item #4934
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: 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, Newtonian Studies (1965), p. 202). Newton here gives his views on..... More
Item #3537
London: John Martyn, [1671/1672]. First printing of Newton’s seminal discoveries on the nature of light. This is Newton’s first published paper, and arguably the most important paper in the history of optics. “If he had published nothing else, it would be sufficient of itself to guarantee him a place among the..... More
Item #5191
London: by James Bettenham, at the expense of the Society for the Encouragement of Learning, and sold by John Nourse … and John Whiston … booksellers to the said Society, 1745. First edition, the superb Macclesfield copy, of the first English translations of two of Newton’s most important papers on..... More
Item #5396
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
Paris: chez Martin le Jeune, 1580. First edition, and a very fine copy, of this famous rarity. “A book of great importance in the history of chemistry, hydrology, geology, and agriculture. Palissy, who is best known for his discovery of the secret of enamelling pottery, was far in advance of..... More
Item #5380
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
Paris: Antoine Bertier, 1644. First edition, exceptionally rare, of Roberval’s cosmology, in which he expresses, covertly, his support for Copernicus, and also formulates for the first time the law of universal attraction – that any two material bodies in the universe attract each other. This principle is normally ascribed to..... More
Item #5431
Paris: Didot jeune and Knapen & Delaguette, 1772. First edition, a magnificent and very rare large paper copy (both larger and printed on thicker paper than the octavo issue), of one of the fundamental works of modern crystallography; it appeared 12 years before Haüy’s Essai d’une Théorie sur la Structure..... More
Item #5371
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Würzburg: Verlag und Druck der Stahel’schen K. Hof- und Universitäts-Buch und Kunsthandlung, 1895 [- 1896]. First editions, first issues, and fine copies from the collection of The Garden Ltd., of the rare offprints of Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays, the most important contribution to medical diagnosis in a century, and a...... More
Item #4932
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
Item #3663
Rome: L. Grignani, 1631. First edition, rare, the Macclesfield copy, of the first description of the construction and use of the pantograph, a linkage mechanism that allows the duplication or scale-altering of a given diagram or drawing, which Scheiner invented about 1603. “This was probably the first copying device” (historyofinformation.com)..... More
Item #5305
Ingolstadt: Eder for Elisabeth Angermaria, 1614 & 1615. First edition, in a beautiful contemporary binding, of Scheiner’s very rare work containing the second earliest map of the moon – but the first to give topographical details – as well as the first illustrations of a telescope. It builds upon Scheiner’s..... More
Item #4126
Frankfurt: Paul Jacobi for Luca Jennis, 1618. First edition, extremely rare, of “the first book about the telescope, its invention and use” (Zinner). Written by the Milanese scholar Girolamo Sirtori in 1612, only four years after the telescope was invented, it contained a complete set of instructions and diagrams for..... More
Item #4706