Search Results: Authors starting with L from SOPHIA RARE BOOKS

Paris; Paris: Veuve Desaint; de l'Imprimerie de la République, 1797. First edition. Hardcover. DIBNER 112: SECOND ONLY TO NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA. An exceptional volume, in a fine contemporary binding, containing the first edition of Lagrange's masterpiece, the Méchanique, "one of the outstanding landmarks in the history of both mathematics and mechanics" (Sarton, p. 470) and "perhaps the most beautiful mathematical treatise in existence, together with the corrected second printing of the Théorie, containing Lagrange's formulation of calculus in terms of infinite series, which provided the basis for Augustin-Louis Cauchy's development of complex function theory in the first decades of the next century. The Méchanique contains the discovery of the general equations of motion, the first epochal contribution to theoretical dynamics after Newton's Principia" (Evans). "Lagrange's masterpiece, the Méchanique Analitique (Paris, 1788), laid the foundations of modern mechanics, and occupies a place in the… Read More

Paris: Desaint & Saillant, 1764. THE TEXTBOOK FOR A GENERATION OF ASTRONOMERS. First edition, a fine set from the library of Erik Prosperin, of this major work by the celebrated French astronomer, which served as the introductory text for a generation of astronomers. "Next to his indefatigable efforts to improve astronomical tables, Lalande's greatest contribution was as a writer of textbooks, the most important being his Traité d'astronomie of 1764, with subsequent editions in 1771 and 1792. It became a standard textbook and had the advantage over other texts of containing much practical information on instruments and methods of calculation" (DSB). "Lalande (1732-1807) became interested in astronomy while he was lodging at the Hôtel de Cluny, where the noted astronomer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle had his observatory. In 1751 Lalande went to Berlin to make lunar observations in concert with the work of Nicolas Louis de Lacaille at the Cape of Good Hope. The success of this task and the subsequent… Read More

Paris: Dentu [&] the author, 1809. First edition. EVANS 103 - CLASSICAL ACCOUNT OF LAMARCK'S THEORY OF EVOLUTION. 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 was owned and annotated by the great French chemist Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau (1737-1816). The annotations are lengthy and well-informed, citing contemporary authors such as Cuvier, Cabanis, and Richerand, and demonstrate the great depth and breadth of the annotator's learning. Importantly, Guyton de Morveau adheres to the theory of evolution, unlike many of Lamarck's contemporaries. Part I of the Philosophie zoologique presents in detail Lamarck's theory of evolution as the result of two factors, the tendency of species toward increasing complexity and the influence of the… Read More

Paris: Maradan, Seconde Année de la République, 1794. First edition. LAMARCK'S FIRST FULL-LENGTH TREATISE ON CHEMISTRY. First edition of the first of Lamarck's full-length treatise on chemistry, a copy with extensive near-contemporary annotations. "With the publication of the Recherches, Larmarck brought together the various strands of his work in physics and chemistry, and his views on the differences between organic and inorganic beings" (Corsi, The Age of Lamarck, pp. 47-48). "In this work Lamarck sets forth his views on the immutability of species and attacks the theory of the spontaneous origin of life. The book is interesting in the history of chemistry, because Lamarck attacks Lavoisier's anti-phlogistic theory" (Duveen). Although Lamarck's chemical theories are often dismissed because of his continued belief in the four elements, they are of interest because of their central importance in the later development of his theory of evolution. His view of the natural evolution of chemical… Read More

Augsburg: Christoph Peter Detleffsen for the widow of Eberhard Klett, 1760. First edition. THE FOUNDATION OF THE SCIENCE OF PHOTOMETRY" (PMM 205). First edition, very rare, of this cornerstone of modern optics, with applications which touch on astronomy and photography; this is one of the rarest of modern science books of this stature. Lambert's discoveries "are of fundamental importance in astronomy, photography and visual research generally ... Both Kepler and Huygens had investigated the intensity of light, and the first photometer had been constructed by Pierre Bouguer (1698-1758); but the foundation of the science of photometry - the exact scientific measurement of light - was laid by Lambert's 'Photometry' ... In the Photometria he described his photometer and propounded the law of the absorption of light named after him. He investigated the principles and properties of light, of light passing through transparent media, light reflected from opaque surfaces, physiological optics, the scattering… Read More

Augsburg: Christoph Peter Detleffsen for the widow of Eberhard Klett, 1760. First edition. "THE FOUNDATION OF THE SCIENCE OF PHOTOMETRY" (PMM 205) . 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 modern science books of this stature. Lambert's discoveries "are of fundamental importance in astronomy, photography and visual research generally ... Both Kepler and Huygens had investigated the intensity of light, and the first photometer had been constructed by Pierre Bouguer (1698-1758); but the foundation of the science of photometry - the exact scientific measurement of light - was laid by Lambert's 'Photometry' ... In the Photometria he described his photometer and propounded the law of the absorption of light named after him. He investigated the principles and properties of light, of light passing through transparent media, light… Read More

The Hague: Nicolaas van Daalen, 1759. First edition. LAMBERT'S FIRST PUBLISHED BOOK. First edition, second issue, extremely rare, of Lambert's first published book, dealing with the path of light rays in air and other media. Lambert began working on aspects of refraction through the atmosphere in 1752, and from 1754 this work was carried out in parallel with his great work on photometry. Lambert began the manuscript for the Propriétés remarquables in January 1758, and by March 1758 he had finished it and submitted it for publication in The Hague. The book is divided into three parts: 'Les propriétés générales de la route, qui la lumière prend, en passant par des milieux réfringens, sphériques et concentriques'; 'Des réfractions astronomiques, de la manière de les déterminer par approximation aussi exactement que l'on voudra, et de leur rapport à divers autres problèmes'; 'Des réfractions circulaires, de leur usage pour la détermination des réfractions terrestres: et de divers… Read More

[Vols. I & II:] Brescia; [Vol. III:] Parma: Brescia: G. M. Riccardi; H. Rosati, 1692. First edition. DIBNER 176: LANA TERZI'S TWO MOST IMPORTANT WORKS - FROM THE LIBRARY OF THE RICCATI FAMILY. First editions of two important works from the library of the distinguished Riccati family of mathematicians and physicists. The Prodromo, Lana's most famous work, contains his design for an air-ship kept aloft by means of evacuated copper spheres, "the earliest concept of flight based on aerostatic principles" (Dibner). The Prodromo was intended as a 'portico' to the Magisterium Naturae, a massive and important encyclopaedia of natural philosophy. Appearing only three years after the Accademia del Cimento's Saggi di naturali esperienze, the Prodromo describes "the earliest concept of flight based on aerostatic principles" (Dibner). "[Lana] determined by experiment that a vessel may be made lighter by reducing the air density within it, and proposed to build a 'flying boat' suspended from four large spheres of… Read More

Paris: Crapelet, Courcier, Bachelier, 1825. First edition. PMM 252 - CELESTIAL MECHANICS. First edition, a fine copy in original wrappers, of this monumental work. The Mécanique céleste is the foundation of modern theoretical astronomy, termed 'the eighteenth-century Almagest' and 'a sequel to Newton's Principia' by Grolier/Horblit. Here, Laplace, rightly called the 'Newton of France' (En Français dans le Texte), codified and developed the theories and achievements of Newton, Euler, d'Alembert, and Lagrange, producing "a locus classicus for celestial mechanics on a scale unmatched since Newton, and also a valuable source for a cluster of important mathematical theories and methods" (Grattan-Guinness, p. 256). "Laplace maintained that while all planets revolve round the sun their eccentricities and the inclinations of their orbits to each other will always remain small. He also showed that all these irregularities in movements and positions in the heavens were self-correcting, so that the whole… Read More

Paris: Gabon, November 1829 (vols. 1-3 and atlas); J.-B. Balliere, 1832 (vol. 4); J.-B. Balliere, 1836 (vol. 5 and atlas), 1836. THE FOUNDATION OF MODERN MILITARY MEDICINE. First edition, extremely rare when complete with all five text volumes and their two atlases, and in superb uniform contemporary bindings, of "Larrey's longest surgical treatise, and the only one that is extensively illustrated. Most of the illustrations concern surgical pathology. The work was published over seven years, and is very rarely found complete" (Norman). Larrey (1766-1842) was the greatest military surgeon in history (Garrison-Morton 2160). He "began his medical studies with his uncle in Toulouse and, in 1787, traveled to North America. Returning to Paris, he continued his studies and during the Revolution, in 1792, was attached to the Army of the North. He eventually became principal surgeon of the French Army and thereafter followed Napoleon Bonaparte in almost all his campaigns-in Egypt, in Italy, in Germany and… Read More

Münich: F. Straub for the Verlag der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1912. First edition. PMM 406 - 'One of the most beautiful discoveries in physics' (Einstein). First edition, very rare offprint issue, of Laue's Nobel Prize-winning report of "one of the most beautiful discoveries in physics" (Einstein). X-rays had been in wide use since their discovery in 1895 but their exact nature as electromagnetic waves of short wavelength was first elucidated by Laue and his collaborators in the present papers. Laue (1879-1960) had moved in 1909 from Berlin (where he was Planck's assistant) to Ludwig Maximillians University in Münich, where he was Arnold Sommerfeld's Privatdozent. In the spring of 1912 he was asked by Sommerfeld's doctoral student Paul Ewald a question about the arrangement of atoms in a crystal. In attempting to answer this question "Laue had the crucial idea of sending X-rays through crystals. At this time scientists were very far from having proven the supposition that… Read More

N.p.: n.d., 1780. First edition. THE FIRST GEOLOGICAL ATLAS OF FRANCE. A unique collection of maps prepared for the first geological atlas of France. "These maps, so far as I know, were the first ever constructed to express the superficial distribution of minerals and rocks. The gifted Frenchman [Guettard] who produced them is thus the father of all the national Geological Surveys which have been instituted" (Geikie, p. 115). "In 1763 the distinguished naturalist Jean Étienne Guettard, an old friend of Lavoisier's father, was advising Lavoisier and may have taken the latter under his wing as early as 1761. Guettard criticized the traditional approach to natural history and advocated a science of mineralogy supported by chemistry, topography, and physics. Since 1746 Guettard had been collecting material for a mineralogical map of France, but the task proved to be too great for a single naturalist. After Lavoisier's apprenticeship, Guettard, in 1763, decided to take the young scientist along as his… Read More

Paris: Bachelier, 1846. First edition. THE PREDICTION OF THE EXISTENCE OF NEPTUNE: THE RARE OFFPRINT. First edition, second offprint issue, very rare, of Le Verrier's mathematical prediction of the existence of Neptune, "undeniably one of the major scientific events of the nineteenth century" (Lequeux, p. 22). "Neptune, whose existence was visually confirmed in 1846, was the first planet to be discovered by mathematical rather than observational means. The discovery of Neptune not only represents the greatest triumph for Newton's gravitational theory since the return of Halley's Comet in 1758, but it also marks the point at which mathematics and theory, rather than observation, began to take the lead in astronomical research ... The discovery of Neptune resulted from the need to develop a theory explaining the motion of the solar system's seventh planet, Uranus, the movements of which could not be completely accounted for by the gravitational effects of Jupiter and Saturn. Several astronomers since… Read More

Milan: Imprimerie Bernardoni de C. Rebeschini, 1902. First edition. ONE OF THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS OF MODERN REAL ANALYSIS". First edition, very rare, of "Lebesgue's great thèse" (Burkill, p. 484), describing his new theory of integration, now known as the 'Lebesgue integral'. "The Lebesgue integral is one of the great achievements of modern real analysis" (Britannica). "It cannot be doubted that this dissertation is one of the finest which any mathematician has ever written ... [Lebesgue's] work lay almost entirely in one field-the theory of real functions; in that field he is supreme" (Burkill, pp. 484 & 488). "Lebesgue's outstanding contribution to mathematics was the theory of integration that bears his name and that became the foundation for subsequent work in integration theory and its applications ... [In his doctoral thesis] Lebesgue began to develop his theory of integration which, as he showed, includes within its scope all the bounded discontinuous functions introduced by Baire" (DSB VIII:… Read More

Paris: H. Estienne & W. Hopyl, 1503. First edition. Hardcover. BEAUTIFULLY PRINTED POST-INCUNABLE MATHEMATICS. First edition of this very rare collection of works, in an attractive Roger Payne binding. The individual works are all first editions with the exception of Lefèvre's Epitome of Boethius' De arithmetica (first, 1496) and an unattributed Opusculum de p[r]axi numerorum quod Algorismum vovant, actually the Algorismus of Sacrobosco (no earlier printing than this one in auction records). This latter text was the first to introduce Hindu-Arabic numerals into the European university curriculum, thereby greatly simplifying the procedures of practical calculation. The geometrical part of the volume comprises several works of Bovelles (ca. 1479-1567), which deal with the classical problems of the quadrature of the circle and duplication of the cube, and contain a highly original study of stellated polygons. Bovelles also gives here the first published account of the cycloid, a curve that was to be of… Read More

Berlin: Johann Christian Papen, 1710. First edition. Hardcover. LEIBNIZ'S CALCULATING MACHINE - THE MACCLESFIELD COPY. First edition, the Macclesfield copy, of this milestone in computer history, Leibniz's description of his famous calculating machine, the first stepped-drum calculator, and the first machine that could perform multiplication and division. "Leibniz studied Morland's and Pascal's various designs and set himself the task of constructing a more perfect and efficient machine. To begin with, he improved Pascal's device by adding a stepped-cylinder to represent the digits 1 through 9 ... In 1694, Leibniz built his calculating machine, which was far superior to Pascal's and was the first general purpose calculating device able to meet the major needs of mathematicians and bookkeepers" (Rosenberg, The Computer Prophets, p 48). "[He] invented a device now known as the Leibniz wheel and still in use in some machines. The mechanism enabled him to build a machine which surpassed Pascal's in that… Read More

Paris: chez l'Auteur, 1675. First edition. LEMERY'S ATOMISTIC CHEMICAL TEXTBOOK - 'VERY RARE' (NEVILLE) . First edition, very rare, of the author's famous chemical textbook. "Lemery's highly successful Cours de chymie, which served as the textbook to his popular courses on chemistry, brought French chemical teaching out of the quasi-mystical Paracelsian tradition into the mainstream of Cartesian and atomistic natural philosophy. The significance of this work lies not in its originality or its thoroughness - Lemery followed very closely the works of his predecessors Le Febvre and Glaser, and did not develop any rigorous theories of matter - but rather in its attractive presentation of chemical ideas in corpuscular-mechanist terms, which contributed to the book's overwhelming popularity. Cours de chymie sold 'like a work of romance or satire' (Fontenelle, quoted in Partington); it went through numerous editions and was translated into Latin and all the major European languages" (Norman). "One of the… Read More

London: Printed by S[arah]. G[riffin]. and B[ennet]. G[riffin]. for Benjamin Tooke and Thomas Sawbridge, 1669. First edition. Hardcover. LEYBOURN'S FIRST BOOK ON SUNDIALS. First edition, first issue, extremely rare, of the first of Leybourn's books on the subject. This issue has 'dialling:' in line 2 of the title and lacks imprint date; the more common (but still rare) second issue has 'Dialling,' and imprint date 1669. This, the Kenney copy, is one of perhaps only two known examples of the first issue, ESTC listing only the BL copy. "In 1669 Leybourn authored The Art of Dialling, a book on the use of sundials and astrolabes in determining the position of vessels at sea. The contemporary expansion of the Royal Navy and Merchant Marines created a significant demand for such manuals, and The Art of Dialling was well written, easy to understand and cheaply produced" (Wikipedia)."The design of sundials represented a steady source of income for independent mathematicians such as William Leybourn. It is… Read More

Paris: L'imprimerie Royale; Jean Boudot, 1700. First edition. Hardcover. THE FIRST BOOKS ON DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS. A fine sammelband comprising the first editions of the first books on the differential and integral calculus, respectively. "In France it was through the Oratorian circle of Nicolas Malebranche that Johann Bernoulli introduced in 1691 the Leibnizian calculus. His lessons to the Marquis de l'Hôpital led to the draft of the first treatise of differential calculus (1696), and it was under the influence of Malebranche that some years later appeared the first works on the integral calculus by Louis Carré in 1700 and Charles René Reyneau in 1708. The spread and acceptance of the Leibnizian calculus was transferred in this way to the wide public" (Landmark Writings, p. 56). "The importance of L'Hospital's work lay in its dissemination throughout Europe of the concepts and early development of the calculus, whose cause L'Hospital advanced as well through his many contacts; these… Read More

Uppsala: np, 1749. First edition. THE BIRTH OF THE SCIENCE OF ECOLOGY. First edition, extremely rare, of Linnaeus' pioneer dissertation which created the science of ecology. "This essay was the first sketch of a science of ecology. Linnaeus used his economy-of-nature concept as an organising principle to unify an important, but previously amorphous, part of natural history. In so doing, he was also attempting to transform an important background concept into the central theory of a new science ... The term 'economy of nature' bore an obvious similarity to the contemporary term for animal physiology, 'animal economy', which involved studying how the parts contributed to the functioning of the whole. Linnaeus may, indeed, have had in mind an analogy between the organs in an animal and the species in a habitat, because his analysis of the interrelations between the plants and animals in nature implied a close and well-defined interaction for the good of the whole: 'To perpetuate the established course… Read More