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

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

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

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

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

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: 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; 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

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

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
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, Newtonian Studies (1965), p. 202). Newton here gives his views on..... More
Item #3537