Paris: David l’ainé, 1743. First edition of one of the classics in the history of science, d’Alembert’s formalization of the new science of mechanics. “The ‘Treatise on Dynamics’ was d’Alembert’s first major book and it is a landmark in the history of mechanics. It reduces the laws of the motion..... More
Item #5878

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..... More
Item #4063

Rome: typis Komarek in via Cursis, 1745. First edition, very rare, of the first published statement of Boscovich’s universal force law, the basis of his atomic theory of matter, which prefigures much of his masterpiece Philosophiae Naturalis Theoria Redacta ad Unicam Legem Virium in Natura Existentium (1758) – at the..... More
Item #5520

Paris: Giraudet for Bachelier, 1824. First edition, very rare, and a fine copy in original state, of Carnot’s only published work, which led directly to the first and second laws of thermodynamics. “Carnot, one of the most original thinkers among physical scientists, applied himself to the analysis of the cyclical..... More
Item #4836

Manchester: S. Russell for R. Bickerstaff, Strand, London; Russell & Allen for R. Bickerstaff, Strand, London; executors of S. Russell for George Wilson; John Harrison, 1808-1810-1827; 1840. First edition, complete withall three parts inscribed by Dalton, and in original publisher’s bindings with original printed spine labels, of his classic work..... More
Item #5839

München: Lentner, [1817]. First edition, journal issue, of the founding work of astrophysics, the discovery of the absorption lines in the solar spectrum; the second plate, which reproduces Fraunhofer’s drawing of these lines (etched by Fraunhofer himself), is the first illustration of the solar spectrum. “In 1802, when describing his..... More
Item #5864

London: Peter Short, 1600. First edition of “the first major English scientific treatise based on experimental methods of research. Gilbert was chiefly concerned with magnetism; but as a digression he discusses in his second book the attractive effect of amber (electrum), and thus may be regarded as the founder of..... More
Item #4577

Paris: Dentu [&] the author, 1809. First edition, an extremely important association copy with extensive contemporary learned and critical annotations by a prestigious scientist and colleague of Lamarck. This was his most complete presentation of his theory of evolution, “a classic in the literature of evolutionary theory” (PMM). This copy..... More
Item #5541

Augsburg: Christoph Peter Detleffsen for the widow of Eberhard Klett, 1760. First edition, very rare, and the finest copy we have seen, of the foundation work of photometry, the measurement of the intensity of light, both objectively and as perceived by the eye; this is one of the rarest of..... More
Item #5873

Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1895. First edition, the copy of The Garden Ltd., of Lorentz’s major work on the electrodynamics of moving bodies “which soon became a classic” (Schaffner, p. 503). It was in this work that he introduced the concept of ‘local time’, a “major discovery” (Hoffmann, p. 86), and..... More
Item #4924

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

[London: Macmillan, 1939]. First edition, extremely rare offprint, of the discovery of nuclear fission, a process which had been observed by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann the previous year but for which they were unable to provide an explanation. “In the late 1930s, a series of experiments showed that bombarding..... More
Item #5323

London: Taylor and Francis, 1913-14. First edition, journal issues in original printed wrappers, and an exceptionally fine set of both parts of this landmark work, journal issue, in the original printed wrappers. “In 1913 and 1914, respectively, Moseley (1887-1915) published two papers which, once and for all, established a firm..... More
Item #4607