London: printed for J. Mawman and sold by J. Booth, 1826. First edition of Babbage’s first substantial published work, the first thorough treatise on actuarial theory, complete with folding table of mortality statistics, generally considered the first reliable life table. It serves as an early example of the desire and..... More
Item #3302
Basel: Impensis Thurnisiorum Fratum, 1713. First edition, an exceptionally fine copy, rare in this condition. “Jakob 1 Bernoulli’s posthumous treatise, edited by his nephew [Nicholas I Bernoulli], (the title literally means “the art of [dice] throwing”) was the first significant book on probability theory: it set forth the fundamental principles of..... More
Item #4063
Basel: Thurneisen Brothers, 1713. First edition, a truly exceptional copy, uncut in original boards. It is hard to imagine a finer copy. “Jakob 1 Bernoulli’s posthumous treatise, edited by his nephew [Nicholas I Bernoulli], (the title literally means “the art of [dice] throwing”) was the first significant book on probability theory..... More
Item #4634
An important autograph letter from Johann Bernoulli (1667-1748), then one of the elder scientific statesmen of Europe, and still one of its greatest mathematicians, to his gifted student Gabriel Cramer (1704-52), who despite his youth had been appointed to the chair of mathematics at Geneva the previous year, but was..... More
Item #4709
Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1888. His text book on probability in which he stated the famous problem later known as ‘Bertrand’s paradox’. 8vo: 235x158 mm. Publishers half cloth over printed boards. Some browning to boards and half title. Otherwise clean and fine throughout. LVII,(1),332 pp. More
Item #1934
London: Taylor, 1851. A fine copy, in original wrappers, of Boole’s first paper probability. The ideas he put forth in this work were later developed and included in his famous Laws of Thought (1854). “This seems to have been the first mention, by any author, of the close connection, both..... More
Item #2974
Berlin: Julius Springer, 1928. A fine copy, from the library of Niels Bohr, of Fermi’s statistical approach to the determination of atomic structure. The association is particularly appropriate since Bohr had inaugurated the quantum-theoretical approach to atomic structure in 1913. Fermi’s approach was developed independently and simultaneously by Llewellyn Thomas..... More
Item #3540
London: Royal Society, 1888. First edition, journal issue in original printed wrappers, of Galton’s invention of the statistical concept of correlation, one of the most “fundamental and ubiquitous” ideas in statistics (Stigler, p. 73). “Like all major scientific discoveries, correlation did not appear in a vacuum. It was a concluding..... More
Item #4698
Berlin: Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1828. First printing of what is now called the Gauss-Newton interpolation formula; which enables one to predict the value of a quantity given a finite number of observations. Gauss had lectured on the interpolation formula at Göttingen in 1812; his then student Encke attended Gauss’s..... More
Item #2983
Paris: Courcier, 1816. A fine uncut copy of his influential text book on probability - beeing the first exposition of Laplace's 'Théorie analytique des probabilités' (see Landmark Writings in Western Mathematics, p.339). 8vo (213 x 140 mm). VIII, 299, (3: errata) pp. Original interims-brochur, spine heavely worn but with no..... More
Item #2025
![Théorie Analytique des Probabilités. Paris: Courcier, 1812. [With:] Supplément a la Théorie...](/pictures/thumb/4159.jpg?v=1488371701)
Paris: Courcier, 1812-25. First edition, very rare, accompanied by all four supplements (the fourth supplement is especially rare), of “the most influential book on probability and statistics ever written” (Anders Hald), which John Herschel called “the ne plus ultra of mathematical skill and power” (Essays from the Edinburgh and Quarterly..... More
Item #4159
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: Printed by W.P. and sold by F. Fayram; Benj. Motte; and W. Pearson, 1725. A very nice copy of de Moivre’s influential study of annuities based upon the mortality statistics gathered by Edmund Halley in the 1690s. “De Moivre’s contribution to annuities lies not in his evaluation of the..... More
Item #3291
London: W[illiam]. Pearson for the Author, 1718. First edition, and an unusually fine copy without any restoration, of this classic on the theory of probability, the first original work on the subject in English. “De Moivre’s book on chances is considered the foundation for the field of probability and statistics”..... More
Item #4637
Paris: J. Quilau, 1708. A fine copy, of the first separately published textbook of probability. “In 1708 [Montmort] published his work on Chances, where with the courage of Columbus he revealed a new world to mathematicians” (Todhunter, p. 78). “The Essay (1708) is the first published comprehensive text on probability..... More
Item #3894
Paris: Jacque Quillau, 1708. First edition, first issue, very rare, of the first separately published textbook of probability. This issue has significant textual differences from what is usually referred to as the first edition. “In 1708 [Montmort] published his work on Chances, where with the courage of Columbus he revealed..... More
Item #4632
![Su[m]ma de arithmetica geometria proportioni et proportionalità. Luca PACIOLI, Lucas de Burgo S....](/pictures/thumb/4844.jpg?v=1572437311)
[Colophon:] Venice: Paganinus de Paganinis, 10-20 November 1494. First edition, first issue (see below), very rare, this is a remarkable copy in entirely original condition and with a distinguished provenance, having been in the famous Giustiniani family from publication to the present day. The Summa is a work of enormous..... More
Item #4844
![Lettres de A[mos] Dettonville contenant Quelques-unes de ses Inventions de Géométrie. Sçavoir...](/pictures/thumb/4403.jpg?v=1511689615)
Paris: Guillaume Desprez, 1659. First edition, extremely rare (one of about 120 copies printed), of one of Pascal’s most brilliant works. “Édition originale, extrêmement rare, de la dernière œuvre de Pascal, l’une des plus éclatantes de son génie” (Lucien Scheler in Tchemerzine, V, pp. 54-55). “Pascal devoted himself during 1658..... More
Item #4403
Paris: Bachelier, 1835. First edition of Quetelet's principal work in which he presented his conception of the homme moyen (“average man”) as the central value about which measurements of a human trait are grouped according to the normal distribution (this was the first time the normal distribution had been used..... More
Item #4841