Paris: Imprimé par autorisation du roi a l’Imprimerie Royale, 1841. First edition, journal issue, of “the most important single result in the theory of integrals of algebraic functions … Abel’s theorem” (Bottazzini & Gray, p. 236), a result which Legendre called ‘a monument more lasting than bronze’. It can be..... More
Item #5197

[N.p. N.p., ca. 1780]. A fascinating manual of astronomy, particularly as it relates to the form of the motions of the heavens, dating from the period 1780-1825, probably from the beginning of that range. It is in a single hand (with the exception of one page), though with some variations..... More
Item #5309

Basle: Joannes Hervagius, 1544. First edition of one of the key scientific books of the Renaissance, representing a decisive step forward in the history of mathematics, containing the first printings of the majority of the surviving works of the greatest mathematician, physicist and engineer of antiquity. This book constitutes “the..... More
Item #5171

Prague: Gottlieb Haase, 1817. First edition, extremely rare, of this epoch-making paper in the history of mathematics, the first to provide a rigorous foundation for the calculus. “The main mathematical achievements of the paper include: (a) the formal definition of the continuity of a function of one real variable, correctly..... More
Item #4362

Paris: Chez de Bure Frères, 1829. First edition, very rare. Following his earlier textbooks, the Cours d’Analyse (1821) and Rćsumć des Leçons (1823), which provided the first rigorous formulation of the calculus of functions of a real variable, Cauchy in this work for the first time treats complex functions of..... More
Item #3696

Paris: Plassan, 1822. First edition, extremely rare separately-paginated offprint (journal pagination 161-174), inscribed by Cauchy (1789-1857) to his senior colleague Sylvestre François Lacroix (1765-1843). In this paper Cauchy published for the first time many of the most important results of his great work Mémoire sur les intégrales définies, submitted to..... More
Item #4279

Milan: Lodovico Monza, 1678. First edition, rare, of Ceva’s first and most important book. “Ceva’s most important mathematical work is De lineis rectis (Milan, 1678), dedicated to Ferdinando Carlo. Chasles mentions it with praise in his Aperçu historique. In this work Ceva used the properties of the center of gravity..... More
Item #5193

Baltimore, Maryland: John Hopkins, 1936. First edition of the first proof that the Entscheidungsproblem (‘decision problem’) is unsolvable, published seven months before Alan Turing published his own independent proof in his paper ‘On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.’ Church’s proof was via his ‘lambda-calculus’; Turing’s was via..... More
Item #4543

Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg, 1872. First edition, very rare in commerce, of Dedekind’s great work on the foundations of mathematics. “This short work [Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen] marks a significant epoch in the movement known as the arithmetization of analysis, that is, the replacement of intuitive geometric notions by concepts described..... More
Item #4558

Paris: H. Drouart, 1621. Editio princeps of the first systematic treatise on algebra (Smith, Rara Arithmetica, p. 348), comprising the first printing of the Greek text, accompanied by Xylander’s Latin translation (1575) and Bachet’s commentary. “The Arithmetica is essentially a logistical work, but with the difference that Diophantus’ problems are..... More
Item #2441

Paris: Melchior Mondiere, 1625. Very rare editio princeps of this important text by Euclid, his only work in pure geometry, other than the Elements, to have survived in Greek. It is here accompanied by a commentary, or rather an introduction, by Marinus of Naples (5th century AD), the pupil and..... More
Item #3427

St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1769-1770-1771. First edition, a beautiful copy in original wrappers, of Euler’s magnum opus on optics, “widely known and important in the physics of the eighteenth century,” which “laid the foundations of the calculation of optical systems” (DSB). “The Dioptricae presented a universal optics with..... More
Item #5225

Lausanne: M.-M. Bousquet, 1748. First edition, entirely untouched in the printer's interim boards, the finest copy we have seen, of Euler’s great textbook on analysis, the only work of Euler listed in Printing and the Mind of Man. “In his ‘Introduction to Analysis’ Euler did for modern analysis what Euclid..... More
Item #5226