Lancaster, PA., and New York: American Physical Society, 1948; 1949; 1951. First edition, journal issues, documenting the invention of the transistor, “which has been called ‘the most important invention of the 20th Century.’ Developed from semiconductor material, the transistor was the first device that could both amplify an electrical signal..... More
Item #4566

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1896. First edition, in original printed wrappers, of the discovery of radioactivity. The Nobel Prize in Physics 1903 was shared between Becquerel, “in recognition of the extraordinary services he has rendered by his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity,” and Marie and Pierre Curie, “in recognition of the extraordinary services..... More
Item #3578

Copenhagen: Bianco Luno, 1918-1922. A fine set of this major work: It was in this fundamental paper that Bohr first gave a clear formulation of, and fully utilized, his 'correspondence principle'. Besides his derivation of the Balmer formula (1913), this is by many considered to be Bohr's greatest contribution to..... More
Item #2257

Copenhagen: IIe Congrès International de la Lumière, 1932. First edition of this famous lecture, which marks Bohr’s first detailed attempt to apply concepts arising from quantum mechanics (particularly complementarity) to areas outside physics. “Here, for the first time, Bohr raised a question that was to preoccupy him, off and on..... More
Item #3792

[London: Harrison and Sons], 1910. Presentation offprint, inscribed in Bohr’s hand to the chemist Einar Biilmann, of the ‘Second Royal Society Paper’ – what Bohr “learned by working in this field may have been a help to him when, more than a quarter of a century later, he showed that..... More
Item #3505

London: Macmillan, 1928. A fine copy in original wrappers of this fundamental paper introducing Bohr’s statement of his ‘complementarity’ principle, the basis of what became known as the ‘Copenhagen interpretation’ of quantum mechanics. “From the epistemological point of view, the discovery of the new type of logical relationship that complementarity..... More
Item #3024

Cambridge: University Press, 1913. First edition, journal issue, of this epoch-making paper, which introduced “Bragg’s law” of X-ray crystallography. “The importance of this work cannot be overstated, for it heralded a revolution in the scientific understanding of crystals and their atomic arrangements. This discovery led to many of the most..... More
Item #4549

Lancaster, PA & Corning, NY: American Physical Society, [1923]. First edition of the ‘Compton effect,’ which demonstrated the existence of quanta of electromagnetic radiation, later called photons. “This discovery ‘created a sensation among the physicists of the time.’ There were the inevitable controversies surrounding a discovery of such major proportions..... More
Item #3588

[London: Harrison & Sons for the Royal Society, 1926]. First edition, inscribed presentation offprint, of Dirac’s paper, which “is justly seen as a major contribution to quantum theory” (Kragh, p. 36). It introduced his quantum mechanical derivation of what is now called Fermi-Dirac statistics, which describes a distribution of particles..... More
Item #4390

Braunschweig: Friedr. Wieweg & Sohn. 1913. The paper in which he first formulated his 'Adiabatic Hypothesis' of quantum theory. "Two important heuristic principles have guided quantum physicists during the period 1913-1925, viz. Ehrenfest's Adiabatic Hypothesis and Bohr's Principle of Correnspondance. The Adiabatic Hypothesis, first formulated by Ehrenfest in 1913 [this..... More
Item #2133

Vancouver: [np], 1975. A detailed draft for a talk given to the Canadian Association of Physics Students, in Vancouver, on the contemporary state of subatomic particle physics, its current difficulties and possible future developments. Although a ‘popular’ talk, it is pitched at a high level, appropriate to postgraduate students in physics..... More
Item #4859

New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985. First edition, first printing, and a fine copy in a bright dust jacket, signed by Feynman and from the library of a second Nobel Prize winner, Edwin P. McMillan. Signed copies of this first printing are rare: Feynman was notorious for refusing..... More
Item #4459

Berlin: Springer, 1926. First edition of Gordon’s account of the ‘Klein-Gordon equation’ (‘KG equation’ in what follows), the first attempt at unifying wave mechanics with special relativity. The KG equation was discovered by several authors independently, the first being the Swedish physicist Oskar Klein, although the equation appeared only incidentally..... More
Item #4497