Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet

One folding engraved plate. iv, 245 pp. (lacking the errata leaf & leaf of ads). 8vo, cont. grey paste-paper boards (lower joint with short split at head & foot). Berlin: T.H. Riemann, 1827. First edition, and a splendid association copy, of this pioneering work which contains one of the most important discoveries in electrical science - "Ohm's law" - the basis of the present system of electrical measurement. Ohm discovered the unit of resistance in an electrical current. This copy belonged to the "Prince of Mathematicians" - Carl Friedrich Gauss - and has the "Gauss-Bibliothek" stamp on the title. It is quite exciting to be able to link two of the greatest 19th-century scientists through an important book like this. "In the field of electrical measurement Ohm was the great pioneer...Ohm's great contribution - 'The Galvanic Chain Mathematically Calculated' - was to measure the rate of current flow and the effects of resistance on the current. 'Ohm's law' - that the resistance of a given conductor is a constant independent of the voltage applied or the current flowing - was arrived at theoretically by analogy with Fourier's heat measurements (1800-14)."-Printing & the Mind of Man 289. It is known that the publisher was forced to pulp most of the copies of this book due to lack of sales. A very fine and fresh copy. Lacking the errata leaf (it clearly was never bound-in) and, as usual, the leaf of ads. With the stamp of the Royal Observatory at Göttingen on free front endpaper (with release stamp facing on the front paste-down endpaper) and title. ❧ Dibner, Heralds of Science, 63. Horblit 81. Sparrow, Milestones of Science, 154. Wheeler Gift Cat. 835.