Search Results: Authors starting with K from SOPHIA RARE BOOKS

Frankfurt: Claudius Marnius & heirs of Johannes Aubrius, 1604. First edition. THE FOUNDATION WORK OF MODERN OPTICS. First edition, an excellent copy, of the foundation work of modern optics. "Working within the perspectivist tradition of Alhazen, Roger Bacon, Witelo, John Pecham, and others, Kepler accepts that sight is possible due to rays emitted from visible objects, with these rays emitted in all directions from each point on the object's surface. He overcomes a major shortcoming of the earlier theories by establishing a logically acceptable one-to-one correspondence between the points on the observed portion of the object and the points on the image produced on the surface of the eye's retina; instead of rejecting all rays hitting the eye non-perpendicularly, as Alhazen had done, Kepler argues that all the rays incident on the eye from any specific point on the object will arrive at a single point on the retina after refraction in the eye's humours. In consequence, the retina receives an… Read More

Marburg: Caspar Chemlin, 1625. First edition. the first theoretical work on the construction of logarithms. First edition, the Macclesfield copy, of Kepler's logarithmic tables, constructed by means of his own original method. Of the greatest rarity, especially when complete with the correction leaf and the second part, which gives examples of the application of logarithms and details of their construction. It was through the use of these tables that Kepler was able to complete his monumental Tabulae Rudolphinae (1627), the superiority of which "constituted a strong endorsement of the Copernican system, and insured the tables' dominance in the field of astronomy throughout the seventeenth century" (Norman). Kepler indicated the importance of logarithms allegorically on the frontispiece to the Tabulae Rudolphinae. On the top of the temple stand six goddesses. The third from the left represents logarithms: in her hands she holds rods of the ratio of one to two, and the number around her head shows the… Read More

1639. First edition. EXTRAORDINARY SAMMELBAND OF SIX RARE WORKS BY KEPLER - INCLUDING SOMNIUM, HIS 'VOYAGE TO THE MOON'. An extraordinary sammelband, with a remarkable provenance, containing six rare works by Kepler, including the first edition of Somnium, Kepler's imaginary voyage to the moon, in which he utilizes the motions of the planets as they would be seen from the moon to argue for the Copernican system, and gives a remarkable description of the appearance of the earth as seen from the moon - this is Kepler's rarest major work. "At Sagan, Kepler finally began to print a short book whose beginnings went back to his school days at Tübingen: his Somnium, seu astronomia lunari. The 'Dream' is a curiously interesting tract for two reasons. First, its fantasy framework of a voyage to the moon made it a pioneering and remarkably prescient piece of science fiction. Second, its perceptive description of celestial motions as seen from the moon produced an ingenious polemic on behalf of the Copernican… Read More

Linz: Hans Blanck, 1616. KEPLER ON MEASURING WINE BARRELS. First edition, a considerably revised, rearranged and augmented version of Kepler's Nova Stereometria published the year before, a work which is "generally regarded as one of the significant works in the prehistory of the calculus" (Gingerich in DSB). "Desiring to outfit his new household with the produce of a particularly good wine harvest, Kepler installed some casks in his house. When he discovered that the wine merchant measured only the diagonal length of the barrels, ignoring their shape, Kepler set about computing their actual volumes. Abandoning the classical Archimedean procedures, he adopted a less rigorous but productive scheme in which he considered that the figures were composed of an infinite number of thin circular laminae or other cross sections. Captivated by the task, he extended it to other shapes, including the torus" (DSB). The Messekunst is not a simple translation of the Nova stereometria. The material is substantially… Read More

Frankfurt: Godefrid Tampach, 1611. First edition. THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC TREATISE ON CRYSTALLOGRAPHY. First edition, extremely rare, of the first scientific treatise on crystallography. Written in the form of a letter, this small tract was presented to Kepler's friend at court, Matthäus Wackher von Wackenfels (who had informed Kepler of the discoveries Galileo had made with the telescope in 1610). "It is not only a charming letter, light-hearted and full of puns, but also a perceptive, pioneering study of the regular arrangement and the close packing that are fundamental in crystallography" (DSB). "Crossing the bridge over the Moldau in a snowstorm, [Kepler] noticed the snowflakes falling on his sleeve. Being nearsighted, he could closely observe their hexagonal form, each snowflake different from the others, yet all six-sided. His roving mind, always filled with curiosity, began to reflect on the causes behind their pattern. What resulted was a little booklet, a New Year's gift for a friend, the… Read More

Frankfurt: Erasmus Kempfer for Godefrid Tampach, 1622. First edition. KEPLER'S GEOMETRICAL COSMOS. Second, enlarged, edition of the Mysterium cosmographicum (first, 1596), Kepler's first scientific book, "the first unabashedly Copernican treatise since De revolutionibus itself" (Gingerich in DSB), which laid "the foundation of his vast later astronomical work [and] immediately made him famous in scientific circles, and got him into contact with Galileo and Tycho Brahe" (Caspar). "Kepler maintained the basic ideas of the work of his youth throughout his life. In the dedication to the present edition he proudly points out his early achievement: 'As if an oracle from the heavens had been dictated to me,' he writes in fond memory. He realises that 'almost all astronomical books which I have published since that time relate to one of the main chapters in this little book, representing an expansion, or an improvement upon it.' Thus the present edition is especially suited to introduce Kepler's thought: it… Read More

London: Hazell, Watson and Viney, 1896. INSCRIBED PRESENTATION COPY - DIBNER 184. First edition, inscribed presentation copy, of this scarce early study on automobiles by the inventor and engineer John Henry Knight. "The development of the automobile is of great historic importance in the history of technology. Of all the early works written on the subject, this book by Knight had a great impact on both the makers and the users of automobiles" (Dibner online). "There were many who attempted to apply the power of small gasoline, gas-generator or electric battery propulsion to a carriage and to make an automobile. The release of the Otto 4-cycle engine patent from monopoly control in 1885 multiplied these efforts and many 'horseless carriages' took to the roads of America and Europe. Prominent names among the more successful pioneers in this effort are Daimler, Benz, Peugeot, Duryea and Mueller. It was in the methods of automobile manufacture and the approach to the mass market that the 20th century… Read More

Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Soner, 1904. First edition. Hardcover. GEOMETRIC FRACTALS. First edition, extremely rare offprint issue, inscribed by the author to Fredholm, of von Koch's paper, which contains the first examples of geometric fractals, the famous 'Koch curve' and 'Koch snowflake'. The term 'fractal' was coined much later, by Benoit Mandelbrot in his 1975 book Les objets fractals, forme, hasard et dimension. A fractal is an object that displays 'self-similarity' on all scales; it need not exhibit exactly the same structure at all scales, but the same 'type' of structures must appear on all scales. A fractal should also have a 'dimension' that is not a whole number, unlike a line (dimension 1) or a plane (dimension 2). Today fractals have found a bewildering variety of applications in both the arts and sciences (fractal patterns have been found in the works of Jackson Pollock). The first example of a fractal was the 'Cantor set,' introduced by Georg Cantor (1845-1918) in 1883. This set is… Read More