Search Results: Authors starting with S from SOPHIA RARE BOOKS

Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, 1482. First edition. Hardcover. THE FIRST PRINTED ASTRONOMICAL BOOK. First printing, rare, of this assembly of basic texts of pre-Copernican astronomy, an exceptional copy in an untouched contemporary binding (this book, and its several fifteenth-century reprints, are almost always found in 19th or 20th century bindings). Sacrobosco's De sphaera mundi (editio princeps 1472) was the first printed astronomical book, a synthesis of Ptolemy and his Arabic commentators, presenting an elegant, accessible Ptolemaic cosmology, and accepted as the most authoritative astronomical textbook of its time. From the time of its composition (ca. 1220), it "enjoyed great renown, and from the middle of the thirteenth century it was taught in all the schools of Europe. In the sixteenth century it gained the attention of mathematicians, including Clavius. As late as the seventeenth century it was used as a basic astronomy text" (DSB). Sacrobosco's text is accompanied in this edition by two… Read More

Venice: Nicolo Polo, 1614. First edition. GALILEAN PHYSIOLOGY. First edition, exceptionally rare, of the work that introduced quantitative experimentation into biological science and founded the science of metabolism. "Through most of the 17th and 18th centuries Santorio's name was linked with that of Harvey as the greatest figure in physiology and experimental medicine because of his introduction of precision instruments for quantitative studies. He was also the founder of modern metabolic research" (Garrison and Morton 572.1). "In 1614 he published De statica medicina, a short work on the variation in weight experienced by the human body as a result of ingestion and excretion. The latter work made him famous. Filled with incisive and elliptic aphorisms, De statica medicina dazzled his contemporaries ... On 9 February 1615 Santorio sent a copy of De statica medicina to Galileo. In an accompanying letter he explained that his work was based on two principles: first, Hippocrates' view that medicine is… Read More

Pavia: Baldassare Comini, 1801. First edition. THE FIRST TEXTBOOK OF OPHTHALMOLOGY IN ITALIAN. First edition of the first textbook on the diseases of the eye to be published in Italian. "The author has been called the father of Italian ophthalmology" (Garrison-Morton). "In this work Scarpa first described the operation of iridodialysis. The chapters on diseases of the vessels in the eye, on cataract, and on staphyloma are particularly noteworthy. Scarpa's books were all superbly illustrated with his own drawings and the plates in this work, engraved by Faustino Anderloni, bear witness to Scarpa's artistic talent. Duke-Elder considered this the greatest work on ophthalmology that had appeared up to its time." Becker Garrison considered Scarpa's illustrations to be the "crown and flower of achievement in anatomic pen-drawing." Scarpa "himself trained the famous Faustino Anderloni (who become the engraver of his illustrations). The latter's brother, Pietro Anderloni, assisted Faustino in the beginning.… Read More

Bracciano: Andreas Phaeus, 1630. First edition. EXTREMELY RARE LARGE AND THICK PAPER COPY. First edition, extremely rare large and thick paper copy, of the most lavishly illustrated astronomical work published in the first half of the seventeenth century, with many full-page illustrations of Scheiner's observations of the sun and of the optical instruments he had designed for the purpose. "For his masterpiece, Scheiner produced the first monograph on a heavenly body, the Sun. Even today it is still an impressive volume, with scores of engravings of sunspots and the various instruments needed for solar observations" (Jesuit Science in the Age of Galileo). "Scheiner's drawings in the Rosa Ursina are of almost modern quality, and there was little improvement in solar imaging until 1905" (Britannica). In this work "Scheiner agreed with Galileo that sunspots are on the Sun's surface or in its atmosphere, that they are often generated and perish there, and that the Sun is therefore not perfect. Scheiner… Read More

Ingolstadt: Eder for Elisabeth Angermaria, 1615. First edition. Hardcover. THE EARLIEST ILLUSTRATION OF A TELESCOPE. First edition, in a beautiful contemporary binding, of Scheiner's very rare work containing the second earliest map of the moon - but the first to give topographical details - as well as the first illustrations of a telescope. It builds upon Scheiner's 1612 discovery of sunspots, made using a telescope he built himself, which led to his famous controversy with Galileo. This work discusses almost all the astronomical issues then current, especially those brought about by the newly invented telescope. There is an extensive argument against the notion of an infinite universe, illustrated by a striking full-page woodcut on p. 17 of 'Chaos infinitum ex atomis' surrounding the sphere of fixed stars. This is followed by a detailed examination of the Copernican heliocentric theory, as well as the Tychonic system, which he supported, and that of Fracastoro; the systems are illustrated by three… Read More

Rome: L. Grignani, 1631. THE FIRST COPYING DEVICE? First edition, rare, the Macclesfield copy, of the first description of the construction and use of the pantograph, a linkage mechanism that allows the duplication or scale-altering of a given diagram or drawing, which Scheiner invented about 1603. "This was probably the first copying device" (). In his Histoire des Mathématiques, Montucla wrote that "independently of his other writings, the invention of this instrument alone ought to have given immortality to his name" (Wallace, p. 420). Scheiner "was a major student of optics and an observational astronomer of real skill, who certainly possessed inventive powers on his own account, as was fully apparent in his devising of the pantograph. In the introduction to his Pantographice seu ars delineandi of 1631 he tells the story behind the invention of his drawing machine. In 1603 at Dillingen, a certain Master Gregorius, 'an excellent painter', boasted to Scheiner of his drawing device, but… Read More

London: Macmillan, 1953. A VERY FINE SET OF THE DNA PAPERS. First edition, in the form in which they first appeared, of six crucial papers documenting the discovery of the structure of DNA and the mechanism of the genetic code. The first is Watson & Crick's paper 'Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid', which "records the discovery of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the main component of chromosomes and the material that transfers genetic characteristics in all life forms. Publication of this paper initiated the science of molecular biology. Forty years after Watson and Crick's discovery, so much of the basic understanding of medicine and disease has advanced to the molecular level that their paper may be considered the most significant single contribution to biology and medicine in the twentieth century" (One Hundred Books Famous in Medicine, p. 362). Watson & Crick's paper is here accompanied by their paper published one month later,… Read More

New York: American Institute of Electrical Engineers [AIEE], 1938. First edition. SHANNON'S FAMOUS MASTER'S THESIS - INCREDIBLY RARE OFFPRINT. First edition, incredibly rare separately-paginated offprint, one of four known copies, of Shannon's famous MIT Master's Thesis, which Herman Goldstein has called "masterful ... surely one of the most important master's theses ever written ... a landmark in that it helped to change digital circuit design from an art to a science" (The Computer From Pascal to Von Neumann, pp. 119-120). While working on his thesis, Shannon was invited to present his work at the Summer Conference of the AIEE, June 2-24, 1938. His presentation was published in December 1938 in the AIEE Transactions; the present offprint of that article is dated 16 September 1938. "Claude Shannon, in his master's thesis entitled 'A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits,' submitted to MIT on August 10, 1937, showed that the two-valued algebra developed by George Boole could be used as a… Read More

New York: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 1948. First edition. THE INVENTION OF INFORMATION THEORY. First edition, journal issue, of "the most famous work in the history of communication theory" (Origins of Cyberspace, 880), and rare in such fine condition. "Probably no single work in this century has more profoundly altered man's understanding of communication than C. E. Shannon's article, 'A mathematical theory of communication', first published in 1948" (Slepian). "Th[is] paper gave rise to 'information theory', which includes metaphorical applications in very different disciplines, ranging from biology to linguistics via thermodynamics or quantum physics on the one hand, and a technical discipline of mathematical essence, based on crucial concepts like that of channel capacity, on the other" (DSB). On the first page of the paper is the first appearance of the term 'bit' for 'binary digit.' "A half century ago, Claude Shannon published his epic paper 'A Mathematical Theory of… Read More

New York: American Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1938. First edition. SHANNON'S FAMOUS MASTER'S THESIS . First edition of Shannon's famous master's thesis. Herman Goldstein has called the thesis "masterful ... surely one of the most important master's theses ever written ... a landmark in that it helped to change digital circuit design from an art to a science" (The Computer From Pascal to Von Neumann, pp. 119-120). "Claude Shannon, in his master's thesis entitled 'A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits,' submitted to MIT on August 10, 1937, showed that the two-valued algebra developed by George Boole could be used as a basis for the design of electrical circuits ... This thesis became the theoretical basis for the electronics and computer industries that were developed after World War II" (). "In 1936 [Shannon] accepted the position of research assistant in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The position allowed him to continue… Read More

[New York: The Institute of Radio Engineers, Inc.], 1949. First edition. PAVED THE WAY FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS IN INFORMATION THEORY" (WYNER) - SHANNON'S OWN COPY OF THE EXTREMELY RARE OFFPRINT. First edition, Shannon's own copy of the extremely rare offprint, of this continuation and elaboration of Shannon's epoch-making 'Mathematical theory of communication'. "In 1948, C. E. Shannon published his classic paper 'A Mathematical Theory of Communication' in the Bell System Technical Journal. That paper founded the discipline of information theory ... Several months later, he published a second paper, 'Communication in the Presence of Noise,' in the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers. This second paper is ... intimately connected to the earlier classic paper. In fact, ... it can be thought of as an elaboration and extension of the earlier paper, adopting an 'engineering' rather than strict mathematical point of view. Yet, this [second] paper comprises ideas, notions, and insights that were… Read More

Edinburgh; London: Sutherland and Knox, Princes Street; Samuel Highley, 32 Fleet Street, 1847. First edition. THE DISCOVERY OF CHLOROFORM ANAESTHESIA - PRESENTATION COPY OF THE EARLIEST OBTAINABLE PUBLICATION . Second edition, extremely rare first issue, inscribed presentation copy, of the first use of chloroform as an anaesthetic. This is the earliest obtainable version of Simpson's discovery - the first edition, published two or three days earlier, is known in only two copies, both in institutional collections. "While searching for an anaesthetic less irritating than ether, Simpson discovered the advantages of chloroform, and was the first to apply it as a painkiller during labor and childbirth. Simpson first used chloroform in an obstetrical case on 8 November 1847, when he administered it to a woman with a previous history of difficult labor; the baby was born without complications about twenty-five minutes after the first inhalation. Simpson reported his success in an address delivered at the… Read More

[Philadelphia, PA: American Philosophical Society], 1917. First edition. THE FIRST OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE FOR THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE. First edition, extremely rare separately-paginated offprint, of the paper which "provided the first evidence supporting the expanding-universe theory" (Britannica). In this profoundly significant paper, Slipher reports his finding that, of 25 spiral 'nebulae' examined, 21 are receding from us at high velocities, thus anticipating Hubble in his two most important discoveries: that the universe is expanding, and that the nebulae are separate galaxies outside our own, implying that the universe is vastly larger than our own Milky Way galaxy. "For the eminent cosmologist Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), Slipher's pioneering observations of redshifts [i.e. velocities of recession] should have led to his being credited with the discovery of the expanding universe" (Kragh & Smith, p. 143). When in 1929 Hubble published the law now named after him stating that galaxies were receding… Read More

Antwerp: Jean Bellère, 1583. First edition. HIS PRINCIPAL WORK IN GEOMETRY. First edition, very rare, of the principal geometrical work by Stevin, "perhaps the most original man of science of the second half of the sixteenth century" (Sarton, p. 242); this highly original work is his only publication in Latin, and his second-published work (after the Tables of Interest). "He was involved in geometry, algebra, arithmetic (pioneering a system of decimals), dynamics and statics, almost all branches of engineering and the theory of music" (Kemp, p. 113). "Stevin unconditionally supported [the Copernican system], several years before Galileo and at a time when few other scientists could bring themselves to do likewise" (DSB XIII: 48). "Not the least important part of Stevin's geometrical work is formed by his study of the convex semi-regular polyhedral of the first species, i.e., convex polyhedra whose faces are regular polygons, not all equal and similar to each other, while the solid angles at the… Read More

Leyden: Jan Paedts Jacobsz, 1608. First edition. Hardcover. Double-entry bookkeeping. Very rare first edition in French of this collection of works, which was published almost simultaneously in Dutch, French and Latin. They deal, among other topics, with geometry, trigonometry, perspective, and double-entry book-keeping - Stevin was one of the first authors to compose a treatise on governmental accounting. The Appendice Algébraique, which Sarton called 'one of Stevin's most important publications,' is the first published general method of solving algebraic equations; it uses what is now called the 'intermediate value theorem,' a remarkable anticipation, as it was not rigorously formulated by mathematicians until the nineteenth century. All the works appearing in this volume were first published in this collection (with one exception, where the version here is the earliest extant - see below). Stevin (1548-1620) was perhaps the most original scientist of the second half of the 16th century (the major… Read More

Leiden: Ex officina Plantiniana apud Christophorum Raphelengium. Academiae Lugduno-Batavae Typographum, 1599. First edition. DETERMINING LONGITUDE IN THE RENAISSANCE . First Latin edition, extremely rare, of Stevin's highly important work on the determination of position at sea using the magnetic variation (or declination) of the compass needle, the angle between magnetic north and true north; since latitude was simply measured, this was tantamount to the determination of longitude. Originally published in Dutch as De Havenvinding, "the [Latin] translation appeared almost simultaneously with the original Dutch version" (Crone et al., p. 375); English and French translations followed later in the same year. "In a seafaring nation like the Dutch republic matters of navigation were, of course, of great importance. In addition to his astronomical works, Stevin ... approached the subject of determining the longitude of a ship, a problem that was not fully solved until the nineteenth century. Several… Read More

Oppenheim: Jakob Köbel, 1513. First edition. THE MOST INFLUENTIAL RENAISSANCE WORK ON ASTROLABES. First edition, an exceptionally fine copy, of the most influential Renaissance work on astrolabes, and also the first German work on astrolabes, by leading astronomer and mathematician Johannes Stoeffler. This work, "the first book of original astronomy published in the 16th century" (mhs.ox.ac.uk/exhibits/the-renaissance-in-astronomy/panels/3-stoeffler-astrolabe/), is divided into two parts, describes both the construction and uses of the instrument, and includes 40 woodcut illustrations of which 24 are full-page, with all the required extended folding parts present (see below). Vital to astronomers, navigators, and astrologers, the astrolabe could be used to locate or predict the position of the sun, moon, planets and stars, to determine local time given local latitude (or vice-versa), to calculate daylight hours (and prayer times) for any given date, as well as for surveying, triangulation, and… Read More

Utrecht: Merinardus van Dreunen, 1669. First edition. WITH ALL PLATES IN FINE CONTEMPORARY HAND-COLORING. First edition, an exceptional copy with all plates in fine contemporary hand coloring, of Swammerdam's important entomological work in which he "sketched the general outlines of an entirely new theory of the generation of all insects. He vehemently attacked axioms that were three centuries old: (1) insects lack internal anatomy; (2) they originate by spontaneous generation; (3) they then develop by metamorphosis. Swammerdam self-confidently declared that he, 'by means of experience' ('door middel van de ondervindingen'), had solved the mystery that for two thousand years had puzzled the most brilliant minds. Swammerdam scorned almost every predecessor who he believed had been more preoccupied with reading books or with 'vain speculations' than with observing the processes of nature. Aristotle, Pliny, Aldrovandi, Moffet and other contemporary authors were all attacked in a most aggressive manner… Read More

Amsterdam: Abraham Wolfgang, 1675. First edition. Hardcover. THE BEST EARLY ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE INTERNAL ANATOMY OF AN INSECT. First edition, very rare and a fine copy, of Swammerdam's treatise on the life-cycle and anatomy of the mayfly, containing his first published descriptions and illustrations of the internal anatomy of an insect. "His Ephemeri Vita contains some very remarkable pieces of minute anatomy. The figures, drawn by himself, are the best early representations of the dissection of an insect" (Hagströmer Library, description of 1681 English translation). "In his last work, on the may-fly, Swammerdam gave the first complete account of metamorphosis ... much in his descriptions was not superseded before the nineteenth century ... on a visit to Paris he repeated before a meeting at Thévenot's house his dissection of the may-fly, and an offer was made to tempt him to Florence" (Hall, From Galileo to Newton, pp. 168-9). In 1669 Swammerdam had published his Historia insectorum generalis,… Read More