Paris: Desaint & Saillant; Lambert, 1759. First edition in French of Newton’s Principia, “the greatest work in the history of science” (PMM), translated by Madame du Châtelet, intimate of Voltaire, with the assistance of Alexis-Claude Clairaut; this is an exceptional copy in original wrappers. Begun in 1745 but published posthumously..... More
Item #4937
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: 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
![Eine neue Art von Strahlen [wrapper title]. Offprint from Sitzungs-Bericht der...](/pictures/thumb/4932.jpg?v=1592230337)
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
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
Item #5308
Leyden: Jan Paedts Jacobsz, 1608-05-05-08. Very rare first edition in French of this collection of works, which was published almost simultaneously in Dutch, French and Latin. They deal, among other topics, with geometry, trigonometry, perspective, and double-entry book-keeping – Stevin was one of the first authors to compose a treatise..... More
Item #4588
London: for T. Astley, S. Austen and L. Gilliver, 1729. First edition of the best contemporary survey of hydraulic engineering in Britain in the early eighteenth century. “His great Introduction to a General System of Hydraulicks and Hydrostaticks, in two extensively illustrated volumes, appeared in 1729. It is his major..... More
Item #5089
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
Item #4307
![Quesiti, et inventioni diverse. [Colophon:] Venice: Venturino Ruffinelli, 1546. [Bound with:]...](/pictures/thumb/4938.jpg?v=1592230381)
Venice: Giovanni Padovano for Curzio Troiano Navò, 1550. First edition of Tartaglia’s Quesiti, second edition of the other two works. The Quesiti continues the discussion of ballistics in Tartaglia’s Nova scientia (first published in 1537), pointing out for the first time that the trajectory of a projectile is curved throughout..... More
Item #4938
Washington DC: Norris-Peters Co., 1886-1914. An extraordinary collection of patents from Tesla’s most fruitful period, comprising almost half of all the patents granted to him. The collection includes Tesla’s patent (645,576) for the invention of radio, one of the key technological inventions of the last century – this was disputed..... More
Item #5014
[New York: James Kempster Printing Company for the National Electric Light Association, 1893]. First edition, extremely rare offprint, inscribed by Tesla to the great American astronomer George Ellery Hale, of this famous lecture. “At St. Louis [Tesla] made the first public demonstration ever of radio communication, although Marconi is generally..... More
Item #4832
St. Petersburg: E. L. Porokhovshchikov, 1903. First edition, extraordinarily rare, of the first published work on space rockets, preceding by 16 years the first publication on rockets by Robert Goddard and by 20 years that of Hermann Oberth. In his bibliography of works on spaceflight, NASA engineer Michael L. Ciancone..... More
Item #4929
Kaluga: by the author, 1914. First edition, very rare, published by the author at his own expense, of the first separately-printed scientific work on space rockets, preceding by five years the first publication on rockets by Robert Goddard. Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) began research into rocket propulsion and the theoretical and practical..... More
Item #4700
![De Centro Gravitatis Solidorum Libri Tres. Rome: B[artolomeo] Bonfadino, 1604. [Bound with]:...](/pictures/thumb/4695.jpg?v=1592229823)
Rome: Bonfadino; Facio, 1604; 1606. First editions of these two rare and fundamental works on determining centres of gravity – these are fascinating copies with numerous contemporary annotations in an untouched contemporary binding. In these books Valerio transformed the Archimedean ‘method of exhaustion’ into a series of important theorems “so..... More
Item #4695
Amsterdam: Etienne Ledet et Compagnie, 1738. First edition, first issue, extremely rare large and thick paper copy, and in a beautiful contemporary binding, of Voltaire's only scientific work. “Owing to Descartes' great influence and Newton’s dispute with Leibnitz, the spread of his [Newton’s] thought on the continent took about fifty..... More
Item #4104
London: William Godbid for Moses Pitt, [1669-] 1671. First edition, very rare when complete with the portrait and all three parts, of this classic treatise on mechanics by Newton’s most important English precursor. It treats both statics (the balance, the lever, centres of gravity, elasticity, and hydrostatics) and dynamics (including..... More
Item #5201
![Peri optikes [in Greek], id est de natura, ratione, & projectione radiorum visus, luminum,...](/pictures/thumb/5136.jpg?v=1604575805)
Nuremberg: Johann Petri, 1535. First edition, rare, and a fine copy, of the first comprehensive European treatise on optics, and the first work to contain descriptions of medieval laboratory instruments. Witelo (born ca. AD 1230) begins with the geometrical theorems required for the optical demonstrations of the remaining books. He..... More
Item #5136