Search Results: Authors starting with A from SOPHIA RARE BOOKS

Paris: Imprimé par autorisation du roi a l'Imprimerie Royale, 1841. First edition. 'A MONUMENT MORE LASTING THAN BRONZE' (LEGENDRE). First edition, journal issue in original printed wrappers, 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 regarded as the birth of algebraic geometry. Abel had already begun to radically transform and generalize the theory of elliptic functions when, in July 1826, he visited Paris, hoping to make the acquaintance of the great mathematicians there. "The visit to Paris was to prove disappointing. The university vacations had just begun when Abel arrived, he found that they were aloof and difficult to approach; it was only in passing that he met Legendre, whose main interest in his old age was elliptic integrals, Abel's own specialty. For presentation to the French Academy of Sciences Abel had reserved a… Read More

Paris: L'Imprimerie Royale, 1693. First edition. Hardcover. A ROYAL PRESENTATION BINDING. First edition of this superb collection of thirty-one treatises by the leading scientists of seventeenth-century France, almost all of which are published here for the first time. This is one of the earliest important publications of the Académie des Sciences, and one of the most magnificent, and the present copy was probably intended for presentation: it is bound in contemporary calf with the arms of Louis XIV on each cover. Founded on 22 December 1666, one of the principal functions of the Académie was to facilitate publication of the works of its members. Frenicle and Roberval were founding members (as was Huygens), and without the assistance of the Académie it is likely that many of their works would have remained unpublished (only two works by Frenicle and two by Roberval were published in their lifetimes). After the death of Frenicle and Roberval in 1675, their books and manuscripts were entrusted to… Read More

London: W. Clowes & Sons, 1846. First edition. EVANS 24 - A TRIUMPH OF GRAVITATIONAL ASTRONOMY. First separate edition, presentation copy inscribed by Adams, of the discovery of Neptune, "undeniably one of the major scientific events of the nineteenth century" (Lequeux, p. 22). Adams (1819-92) and the French astronomer Urban Le Verrier (1811-77) independently predicted the existence and position of Neptune using Newton's gravitational theory, and the existence of the planet was quickly confirmed by observation. "In this pamphlet Adams had postulated mathematically the existence of an unknown planet from its gravitational manifestations. Le Verrier simultaneously and independently made the same discovery. J.G. Galle found the planet, Neptune, on the first night it was sought, on the basis of Le Verrier's prediction" (Dibner). "Adams began his investigation of Uranus in 1843, and in 1845 sent his calculations and observations to the Astronomer Royal, George Biddell Airy, who failed to recognise the… Read More

Basel: [colophon:] Hieronymus Froben and Nicolaus Bischof, 1556. First edition. DIBNER 88: ONE OF THE EARLIEST BOOKS ON TECHNOLOGY. First edition, the Harrison D. Horblit copy, of the "first systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times" (PMM). "The twelve books of Agricola's treatise ... embrace everything connected with Renaissance mining and metallurgical industries, including administration, the duties of companies and workers, prospecting, mechanical engineering, ore processing and the manufacture of glass, sulfur and alum. Book VI provides detailed descriptions of sixteenth-century mining technologies, such as the use of water-power for crushing ore and the improvements in suction pumps and ventilation that became necessary as mine shafts were sunk deeper underground; it also includes an account of the diseases and accidents prevalent among miners, along with the means of preventing them. De re metallica remained the standard textbook on… Read More

Basel: Hieronymus Froben, 1546. First edition. Hardcover. THE FIRST HANDBOOK OF MODERN SYSTEMATIC MINERALOGY. An exceptionally fine copy, completely untouched in its original binding, of 'the first handbook of modern systematic mineralogy' (Grolier/Horblit 2a). "Georgius Agricola (latinized from the German 'Georg Bauer') became interested in the theoretical and practical aspects of mining, metallurgy and geology after being appointed town doctor of Joachimsthal, a silver-mining community on the east side of the Erzgebirge mountains in what is now Czechoslovakia. He published his first work on mining, Bermannns sive de re metallica dialogus, in 1530, and followed it sixteen years later with this collection of five treatises on geology and metallurgy, including the first work on physical geology ("De ortu & causis subterraneorum"); the first systematic mineralogy ("De natura fossilium"); a work on subterranean waters and gases ("De natura eorum quae effluunt ex terra"); a treatise on references to… Read More

Antwerp: Plantin Press for the widow and sons of Jan Moretus, 1613. First edition. A MASTER TREATISE ON OPTICS ILLUSTRATED BY RUBENS. First edition, and a fine copy, of this great Jesuit treatise on optics, with engraved allegorical frontispiece and exquisite headpieces designed by Peter Paul Rubens. "A master treatise on optics that synthesized the works of Euclid, Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), Vitellio, Roger Bacon, Pena, Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée), Risner, and Kepler" (DSB). "A landmark of baroque book illustration, this is one of seven works known to have been illustrated by Rubens" (Becker). "Aguilón was one of the first of a long line of distinguished Jesuit writers on optics. His treatise has acquired a great deal of attention because of its seven engravings after drawings by Rubens. It is not so well known that Aguilón's color theory and his prescriptions for the mixing of colors were actually used by Rubens in his paintings" (Ashworth, in Jesuit science in the age of Galileo). "The color… Read More

Paris: David l'ainé, 1747. First edition. "A LANDMARK IN THE HISTORY OF DYNAMICS" (PMM) [BOUND WITH:] THE BIRTH OF SCIENTIFIC METEOROLOGY . 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 of bodies to a law of equilibrium. Its statement that 'the internal forces of inertia must be equal and opposite to the forces that produce the acceleration' is still known as 'd'Alembert's principle'. This principle is applied to many phenomena and, in particular, to the theory of the motion of fluids. It has become useful in the practical solution of many technical and mechanical problems, and is as important for the motion of bodies as is the principle of virtual velocities for their equilibrium - the latter formulated by Johann Bernoulli in 1717. It was left to Lagrange to combine both these… Read More

Paris: David l'ainé [Colophon: De l'imprimerie de Jean-Baptiste Coignard, imprimeur du roi], 1747. First edition. 'AN ORIGINAL WORK ... CONTAINING THE GERM OF ALL THAT HAS BEEN DONE SINCE OF THE MECHANICS OF SOLID BODIES' (LAPLACE) . First edition of one of d'Alembert's most important books, widely regarded as the foundation work of the dynamics of rigid bodies. "The precession of the equinoxes had been observed in antiquity by Hipparchus. Newton explained the cause, the astronomer Bradley detected the nutation in a series of extremely accurate observations, and d'Alembert deduced the motion from the theory of gravitation" (Hankins, p. 30). "During the late 1740s, d'Alembert, Clairaut, and Euler were all working on the famous three-body problem, with varying success. D'Alembert's interest in celestial mechanics thus led him, in 1749, to publish a masterly work, the Recherches sur la précession des equinoxes, et sur la nutation de l'axe de la terre. The precession of the equinoxes, a problem… Read More

Paris: David l'aîné, 1752. First edition. A TURNING POINT IN MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS" (TRUESDELL). First edition of one of d'Alembert's most important books. "It is recognised that the New Theory of the Resistance of Fluids was a turning point in the genesis of Fluid Mechanics: for the first time the motion of a fluid was reduced to two differential equations in partial derivatives relating the velocities and positions. Therefore, the physical problem of fluid motion was converted into a mathematical one" (Calero, p. v). The Essai is famous for a number of 'firsts.' "The Essai ... is a turning point both in physics and mathematics. It contains the first field description of media in motion, a description which in other hands led quickly to partial differential equations and in particular to potential theory. It contains also what is generally described as d'Alembert's solution of [Laplace's] equation d2φ/dx2 + d2φ/dy2 = 0 in the form φ = f(x + iy) + g(x - iy) ... The analysis is contained in… Read More

Paris: David l'ainé, 1744. First edition. 'D'ALEMBERT'S PRINCIPLE' APPLIED TO HYDRODYNAMICS . First edition of this continuation of d'Alembert's classic Traité de dynamique published in the previous year. "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 of bodies to a law of equilibrium. Its statement that 'the internal forces of inertia must be equal and opposite to the forces that produce the acceleration' is still known as 'd'Alembert's principle'. This principle is applied to many phenomena and, in particular, to the theory of the motion of fluids" (PMM 195). D'Alembert had applied his principle to fluid mechanics in a brief section at the end of the Traité de dynamique, but in the present work he gives a far more detailed treatment."In 1744 d'Alembert published a companion volume to his first work, the Traité de l'équilibre et du mouvement des fluides. In this work d'Alembert used his principle… Read More

Paris: David l'ainé, 1743. First edition. "A LANDMARK IN THE HISTORY OF DYNAMICS" (PMM) . 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 of bodies to a law of equilibrium. Its statement that 'the internal forces of inertia must be equal and opposite to the forces that produce the acceleration' is still known as 'd'Alembert's principle'. This principle is applied to many phenomena and, in particular, to the theory of the motion of fluids. It has become useful in the practical solution of many technical and mechanical problems, and is as important for the motion of bodies as is the principle of virtual velocities for their equilibrium - the latter formulated by Johann Bernoulli in 1717. It was left to Lagrange to combine both these principles and to construct mechanical equations… Read More

Paris: Crochard, 1823. DOCUMENTING THE BIRTH OF ELECTRODYNAMICS. A beautiful copy bound in contemporary red morocco of the definitive version of this continually evolving collection of important memoirs on electrodynamics by Ampère (1775-1836) and others over the period 1820-1823, beginning with his 'Premier Mémoire', the "first great memoir on electrodynamics" (DSB). "Ampère had originally intended the collection to contain all the articles published on his theory of electrodynamics since 1820, but as he prepared copy new articles on the subject continued to appear, so that the fascicles, which apparently began publication in 1821, were in a constant state of revision, with at least five versions of the collection appearing between 1821 and 1823 under different titles" (Norman). Some of the 25 pieces in the collection are published here for the first time, others appeared earlier in journals such as Arago's Annales de Chimie et de Physique and the Journal de Physique. But even the articles that… Read More

[N.p.: N.p., 1780. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPT NOTEBOOK ON ASTRONOMY. 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 indicating that different parts of the MS were written at different times. The MS could have been prepared for personal use or as part of public tuition (probably the former). The writer summarizes the subject matter of the manual on the first leaf: 'Astronomy is that part of Natural Philosophy which treats of the Phenomena of the heavenly Bodies. It is divided into 2 Parts, Physical and Plain: by the latter we discover their Motions from the Apparent Motions; by the former the Causes of these real Motions.' The MS is in three parts, which are distinct in terms of subject matter. The first part covers the motion of the Earth around the Sun, and its rotation about its… Read More

Landshut: Johann Weissenburger fur Petrus Apianus, 1524. First edition. IMPORTANT ASTRONOMICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL RENAISSANCE TREATISE WITH SEVERAL REFERENCES TO AMERICA. First edition, very rare, of one of the most important geographical and astronomical texts of the Renaissance, and perhaps the most significant and influential of the 16th century instrument books for navigators and travellers. "During the first half of the sixteenth century Germany was the principal center of both mathematical and descriptive geography ... [The] German school of geographers had its greatest exponents in Peter Apian (1501-52) and Sebastian Münster (1489-1552). Apian was an astronomer and mathematician; in his Cosmographicus Liber ... subsequently edited by the great Flemish mathematician Gemma Phrysius [Frisius] under the simpler title Cosmographia, he based the whole science on mathematics and measurements, following Ptolemy in making a distinction between geography (the study of the earth as a whole) and chorography… Read More

Basle: Joannes Hervagius, 1544. First edition. PMM 72 - 'GIVE ME A PLACE TO STAND, AND I WILL MOVE THE EARTH'. 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 first printing of the original Greek text of seven Archimedean mathematical texts, accompanied by Jacopo de Cremona's Latin translation from a manuscript corrected by Regiomontanus, and the commentaries (in both Greek and Latin) of the sixth-century mathematician Eutocius of Ascalon" (Norman). "Archimedes - together with Newton and Gauss - is generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians the world has ever known, and if his influence had not been overshadowed at first by Aristotle, Euclid and Plato, the progress of modern mathematics might have been much faster. As it was, his… Read More

Pesaro: Camillus Franceschinus, 1572. First edition. THE ONLY SURVIVING WORK OF ARISTARCHUS - THE FIRST TO PROPOSE A HELIOCENTRIC THEORY. First separate edition, rare, of Aristarchus' only surviving work, in which Aristarchus (310-230 BCE) demonstrated an ingenious method for calculating the sizes and distances of the Sun and the Moon. It was first published, with other texts, by Giorgio Valla at Venice in 1488, and again in 1498, but the present edition is more elaborate and includes the first printing of the additions by Pappus of Alexandria and those of the great Renaissance commentator Federico Commandino. "Aristarchus is celeated as being the first man to have propounded a heliocentric theory, eighteen centuries before Copernicus" (DSB). Aristarchus also said that the stars were distant suns that remained unmoved and that the size of the universe was much larger than his contemporaries believed. "Aristarchus' treatise on the sizes and distances is a purely mathematical exercise which has as… Read More

Turin: Stamperia Reale, 1837. First edition. Hardcover. A LANDMARK FOR THE HISTORY OF ITALIAN SCIENCE" (MORSELLI). First edition of one of the great rarities of chemistry, and especially rare in the original printed wrappers as here. This monumental work is the only large-scale publication of Avogadro (1776-1856), famous for his eponymous hypothesis (1811) that equal volumes of all gases at the same pressure and temperature contain the same number of molecules. "Avogadro also wrote a large book [offered here] which was read with interest by Faraday and contains an account of his hypothesis" (Partington, History of Chemistry IV, p. 216). Although his molecular hypothesis is widely considered to be Italy's great contribution to chemistry in the 19th century, his 1811 memoir was largely ignored for another half century, partly because it was published first in Italian (when Italy was at the periphery of scientific research) and subsequently only in minor French, German and English scientific journals.… Read More