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
Modena: impensis Authoris ex Typ. Cassiani, 1662. First edition of these very rare ephemerides, containing one of the most detailed lunar maps up to that time. Cornelio Malvasia (1603-63), a wealthy nobleman and amateur astronomer from Bologna, made his astronomical observations in the private observatory he built over his villa..... More
Item #5401
Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1888. A remarkable collection of offprints documenting Marey’s foundational contributions to the science of cinematography. Marey was “the lead character in the birth of scientific cinema” (Tosi, p. 82); he “was the first to use a single camera to produce photographs on a strip of sensitized film in..... More
Item #5494
Hambourg [i.e., Leiden]: [Élie Luzac], 1753. First edition, rare, of this collection of pamphlets relating to the ‘König affair,’ the celebrated polemic on the principle of least action, “perhaps the ugliest of all the famous scientific disputes” (DSB VII: 442). The König affair is of considerable importance in the history..... More
Item #4957
Hambourg [i.e., Leiden]: [Élie Luzac], 1753. First edition, rare, of this collection of pamphlets relating to the ‘König affair,’ the celebrated polemic on the principle of least action, “perhaps the ugliest of all the famous scientific disputes” (DSB VII: 442). This is an exceptional association copy, from the library of..... More
Item #5306
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
London & Cambridge: Macmillan, 1871. First edition, extremely rare, of Maxwell's inaugural lecture as Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge, which marks the beginning of the tradition of experimental research at the Cavendish Laboratory, a tradition which was to lead to 29 Nobel Prizes being awarded to..... More
Item #4958
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
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
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
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: Printed for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford, Printers to the Royal Society, at the Prince’s Arms in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1704. First edition, first issue, and a superlative copy, presented by Newton to his close friend and collaborator Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with an inscription recording the gift in..... More
Item #5080
London: Allde, for Astley, 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 the development..... More
Item #4986
Berlin: J.G.F. Kniestädt for T.H. Riemann. 1827. First edition of “Ohm’s great work” (DSB), containing the fully-developed presentation of his theory of electricity, including Ohm’s Law. “Ohm’s great contribution − ‘The Galvanic Chain Mathematically Calculated’ − was to measure the rate of current flow and the effects of resistance on..... More
Item #5475
Palermo: Reale Stamperia, 1792. First edition, very rare, of Piazzi’s account of the Palermo Observatory, which he established, and where he made the observations that led to his discovery, on January 1, 1801, of the minor planet Ceres. Specola Astronomica includes Piazzi’s description of the astronomical instruments he had commissioned..... More
Item #3288
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: for the author, 1588. First edition, in a beautiful contemporary binding, of one of the most famous illustrated books of the sixteenth century and a landmark in book design. “The military engineer Agostino Ramelli produced a remarkable illustrated book in 1588 describing a large number of machines that he..... More
Item #5502
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