Search Results: Titles starting with E from SOPHIA RARE BOOKS

Würzburg: Verlag und Druck der Stahel'schen K. Hof- und Universitäts-Buch und Kunsthandlung, 1896. First edition. Soft cover. EVANS 46 - DISCOVERY OF X-RAYS. First editions, first issues, and fine copies, of the rare offprints of Röntgen's discovery of X-rays, the most important contribution to medical diagnosis in a century, and a key to modern physics. "While performing experiments with a Crookes vacuum tube, a type of cathode-ray tube, Röntgen observed that some agent produced in the tube was causing barium platinocyanide crystals to fluoresce. Upon investigation he found that the fluorescence was caused by unknown rays (which he named 'X-rays') originating from the spot where cathode rays hit the glass wall of the vacuum tube. He announced his discovery in the present paper, which described the rays' photographic properties and their amazing ability to penetrate all substances, even living flesh. Although he was unable to determine the true physical nature of the rays, Röntgen was certain… Read More

Leiden: Isaac Severinus, 1732. First edition. UNCUT LARGE PAPER COPY. First edition, very rare uncut large paper copy, and a very early printing of this great work (see below). "The first and best edition, and rare" (Duveen). "[Boerhaave] introduced exact quantitative methods into chemistry by measuring temperature and using the best available balances made by Fahrenheit; indeed he may be considered the founder of physical chemistry as well as a contributor to pneumatic chemistry and biochemistry ... When a spurious edition of his chemical lecture notes was published in 1724 ... he felt impelled to publish a textbook on chemistry, the Elementa chemiae, which was later translated into English and French and remained the authoritative chemical manual for decades" (DSB). In the preface, Boerhaave pointedly disowned the unauthorised 1724 publication, railing that "The false Notions, Absurdities, and Barbarisms, that are imputed to me in every page of that Work, are so abominable, that they will not bear… Read More

Venice: Erhard Ratdolt, 1482. First edition. PMM 25 - the oldest textbook in the history of science. First edition of the "oldest mathematical textbook still in common use today" (PMM), This book "has exercised an influence upon the human mind greater than that of any other work except the Bible" (DSB). Euclid's Elements is the only work of classical antiquity to have remained continuously in print, and to be used continuously as a textbook from the pre-Christian era to the 20th century. It is the foundation work not only for geometry but also for number theory. Euclid's Elements of Geometry is a compilation of early Greek mathematical knowledge, synthesized and systematically presented by Euclid in ca. 300 BC. Books I-IV are devoted to plane geometry, Book V deals with the theory of proportions, and Book VI with the similarity of plane figures. Books VII-IX are on number theory, Book X on commensurability and incommensurability, Books XI-XII explore three dimensional geometric objects, and Book XIII… Read More

Göttingen, 1899. First edition. PRE-PUBLICATION PRINTING OF HILBERT'S LECTURES ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF GEOMETRY. First printing, extremely rare, of Hilbert's classic lectures on the foundations of geometry, delivered during the 1898-99 winter semester at Göttingen. It precedes the revised and expanded published version, retitled "Grundlagen der Geometrie," that was included in the Festschrift zur Feier der Enthüllung des Gauss-Weber-Denkmals in Göttingen (1899). This prepublication version, reproduced from a professionally prepared manuscript, was privately printed in an edition of 70 copies under the direction of Hans von Schaper, one of Hilbert's doctoral students; as noted in von Schaper's introduction (p. [ii]), it was intended primarily for the benefit of those who attended Hilbert's mathematical lectures. Hilbert's work on the foundations of geometry represents the most successful attempt to establish a complete set of axioms from which Euclidean geometry can be derived. "Hilbert's idea was… Read More

New Haven: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor, 1881. the beginning of modern vector analysis. First edition, first issue (see below), of this extremely rare pamphlet which "marks the beginning of modern vector analysis" (Crowe, p. 150). "Nearly all branches of classical physics and many areas of modern physics are now presented in the language of vectors, and the benefits derived thereby are many. Vector analysis has likewise proved a valuable aid for many problems in engineering, astronomy and geometry" (ibid. p. v). The genesis of the present work was described in Gibbs's own words in an 1888 letter to Victor Schlegel: "My first acquaintance with quaternions was in reading Maxwell's E & M [i.e. Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 1873] where quaternion notations are considerably used. I became convinced that to master those subjects, it was necessary for me to commence by mastering those methods. At the same time I saw, that although the methods were called quaternionic the idea of the quaternion was… 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

Modena: impensis Authoris ex Typ. Cassiani, 1662. First edition. INCLUDING A LARGE AND DETAILED LUNAR MAP . First edition of these very rare ephemerides, containing one of the most detailed lunar maps up to that time. Cornelio Malvasia (1603-63), a wealthy nobleman and amateur astronomer from Bologna, made his astronomical observations in the private observatory he built over his villa in Panzano, near Modena. Amongst his collaborators was Geminiano Montanari (1633-87). Malvasia also did much to foster the talent of the young Gian Domenico Cassini (1625-1712), whom he recommended for the chair of astronomy at Bologna University. Montanari became skilled in the design and construction of astronomical instruments. To make the lunar map in the present work, Montanari used a telescope together with a 'reticule', an early form of bifilar micrometer, designed by Malvasia. The present work was dedicated to Cardinal Giulio Cesare Sacchetti - twice nominated by Antonio Barberini as the French candidate for… 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

Paris: Didot jeune and Knapen & Delaguette, 1772. First edition. A FUNDAMENTAL WORK OF MODERN CRYSTALLOGRAPHY - VERY RARE LARGE PAPER COPY. First edition, a magnificent and very rare large paper copy (both larger and printed on thicker paper than the octavo issue), of one of the fundamental works of modern crystallography; it appeared 12 years before Haüy's Essai d'une Théorie sur la Structure des Cristaux. Romé de L'Isle established that various shapes of crystals of the same natural or artificial substance are all closely related to each other. Measurements he took with a goniometer enabled him to determine that the angles between corresponding faces of a crystal are always the same, which earlier had only been described in specific cases, in particular by Niels Steno (this is often described as the first law of crystallography). In addition, he demonstrated that these angles are a characteristic of mineral type, introduced the concept of truncation, and also enlarged the crystallographic… Read More

Paris: Claude Jombert, 1729. First edition. Hardcover. THE FOUNDING WORK OF PHOTOMETRY. First edition of the founding work of photometry. "[Bouguer's] interest in the measurement of light dates from about 1721, when J. J. d'Ortous de Mairan proposed a problem that necessitated a knowledge of the relative amount of light from the sun at two altitudes. Bouguer succeeded in making such a measurement of the light from the full moon on 23 November 1725, by comparing it with that of a candle. Bouguer's achievement was to see that the eye could be used, not as a meter but as a null indicator, i.e., to establish the equality of brightness of two adjacent surfaces. He then made use of the law of inverse squares [that the intensity of light is proportional to the inverse square of the distance from its source], first clearly set forth by Kepler. In his Essai d'optique sur la gradation de la lumiére (1729), he showed how to compare lights in this way; he then went on to deal with the transmission of light… Read More

Paris: Claude Jombert, 1729. First edition. THE FOUNDING WORK OF PHOTOMETRY SUPERB LARGE-PAPER COPY BOUND FOR THE DEDICATEE. First edition of the founding work of photometry, a superb large-paper copy lavishly bound for the dedicatee, the Comte de Maurepas, Louis XV's Minister of the Marine. "[Bouguer's] interest in the measurement of light dates from about 1721, when J. J. d'Ortous de Mairan proposed a problem that necessitated a knowledge of the relative amount of light from the sun at two altitudes. Bouguer succeeded in making such a measurement of the light from the full moon on 23 November 1725, by comparing it with that of a candle. Bouguer's achievement was to see that the eye could be used, not as a meter but as a null indicator, i.e., to establish the equality of brightness of two adjacent surfaces. He then made use of the law of inverse squares [that the intensity of light is proportional to the inverse square of the distance from its source], first clearly set forth by Kepler. In his… 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

Berlin (i.e., Paris): np, 1754. First edition. A PIONEERING WORK ON GENETICS. First edition in French, the earliest obtainable, and very rare, of Maupertuis' remarkable original work on the nature of heredity and evolution, which marks him out, in the words of evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (The Growth of Biological Thought, p. 328), as "one of the pioneers of genetics". "Buffon saw clearly that both father and mother made a genetic contribution, but it was P. M. de Maupertuis, more than anyone else, who developed a theory of inheritance that can be considered as foreshadowing later developments. Maupertuis espoused a theory of pangenesis, based on the thought of Anaxagoras and Hippocrates, postulating particles ('elements') from both father and mother as responsible for the characters of the offspring. Most components of his theory can be found in the later theories of Naudin, Darwin and Galton" (ibid., p. 646). This is "one of his most significant works, later called Système de la nature. A… Read More

Paris: Jacque Quillau, 1708. First edition. Hardcover. THE FIRST BOOK ON PROBABILITY: PREPUBLICATION ISSUE. First edition, first issue, very rare, of the first separately published textbook of probability. This issue has significant textual differences from what is usually referred to as the first edition. "In 1708 [Montmort] published his work on Chances, where with the courage of Columbus he revealed a new world to mathematicians" (Todhunter, p. 78). "The Essay (1708) is the first published comprehensive text on probability theory, and it represents a considerable advance compared with the treatises of Huygens (1657) and Pascal (1665). Montmort continues in a masterly way the work of Pascal on combinatorics and its application to the solution of problems on games of chance. He also makes effective use of the methods of recursion and analysis to solve much more difficult problems than those discussed by Huygens. Finally, he uses the method of infinite series, as indicated by Bernoulli (1690)" (Hald,… Read More

Paris: Antoine Boudet, 1746. First edition. THE FIRST SPECIALIZED BOOK ON DENTAL PROSTHETICS. First edition, rare on the market, of "the first specialized book on dental prosthetics" (G & M), and perhaps the first contribution to what would later be called "cosmetic dentistry." "Mouton, in 1746, ... gave to the light a monograph, the first extant, on mechanical dentistry. The methods of this author for the most part do not differ from those of Fauchard, nevertheless one finds several important innovations in his work. To prevent the further deterioration of teeth already much destroyed, and to preserve them some time longer, Mouton had recourse to the application of "calottes d'or," that is, gold crowns. He used this for the front teeth as well as for the molars, but in the former case he had them enamelled to give them the same appearance as natural teeth. Mouton also invented a new method of applying artificial teeth. Up to then the ordinary method had been that of fixing them to the natural teeth… Read More

Nottingham: Printed for the author, by T. Wheelhouse, 1828. First edition. ONE OF THE MAJOR PUBLICATIONS IN 19TH CENTURY MATHEMATICS - "EXCESSIVELY RARE" (WHEELER GIFT). First edition, "excessively rare" (Wheeler Gift), of "one of the major publications in the mathematics of the 19th century" (Landmark Writings, p. 403), in which Green revolutionized the study of potential theory as we now understand it (and coined the term 'potential' in this context), and introduced 'Green's theorem' and 'Green's functions,' which have proved to be of the greatest importance in all branches of mathematical physics. "Through Thomson, Maxwell, and others, the general mathematical theory of potential developed by an obscure, self-taught miller's son would lead to the mathematical theories of electricity underlying twentieth-century industry" (DSB). "Latimer Clark, a nineteenth-century historian of electricity, described [Green's] Essay of 1828 as 'one of the most important works ever written on electricity'; and Sir… Read More

[Leyden]: in bibliopolio Commeliniano sumptibus viduae Joannis Comelini, 1620. First edition. Hardcover. EARLY ATOMISM. First edition, extremely rare, of one of the earliest modern works on atomism. "Gorlaeus is counted among the founders of modern atomism, which he proposed as an alternative to Aristotelian matter theory. Because of his notion of atomic compounds, he is also regarded as a contributor to the evolution of chemistry" (DSB). "When David Gorlaeus (1591-1612) passed away at 21 years of age, he left behind two highly innovative manuscripts. Once they were published [as the present work, and as Idea physicae (1610), his work had a remarkable impact on the evolution of seventeenth-century thought. However, as his identity was unknown, divergent interpretations of their meaning quickly sprang up. Seventeenth-century readers understood him as an anti-Aristotelian thinker and as a precursor of Descartes. Twentieth-century historians depicted him as an atomist, natural scientist and even as a… Read More

Venice: Domenico Louvisa; Gabriel Hertz & Giovanni Manfrè, 1724. First edition. DANIEL BERNOULLI IN ITALY - FOUR WORKS BY HIM, HIS FRIENDS, AND HIS ADVERSARIES. Sammelband of four very rare works, all first editions, representing the work of the great Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli, and of those of his friends and adversaries, during the period 1723-25 he spent in Italy. Bernoulli's Exercitationes is his first mathematical publication, the success of which resulted in his appointment to the Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg. The work is in four parts, and is notably polemical. In the first part Bernoulli develops the theory of recurrent series and applies it to problems of probability involving the card game Faro; here Bernoulli disputes the position of Giovanni Rizzetti, famed as a critic of Newton's theory of light. This was "evidence of his early interest in the work on the theory of probability done by his predecessors Montmort and De Moivre, which had been nourished by discussions with… Read More

Kiev, 1987. First edition. A SECRET SOVIET REPORT ON THE CHERNOBYL DISASTER. First edition, extremely rare, of this secret report assessing the immediate aftermath of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl on 26 April, 1986 - it is one of the very few first-hand accounts by an insider. The book provides a minute-by-minute account of what happened in the period 26-28 April, assesses the damage wrought and the subsequent efforts made to clean up the area. A substantial portion of the book is dedicated to the little known issue of the Diepr River reservoir, fifteen miles downstream from Cheronobyl and ten miles upstream from central Kiev, and to the efforts to procure an alternate water supply for the Ukranian capital. All of these details are illustrated using maps and diagrams that show the progression of radioactivity in different areas and layout the disaster. The book was produced by the Ukranian SSR civil defence corps under the leadership of Lieutenant-General N. S. Bondarchuk, one of the central… Read More

Amsterdam: Johanned Jansson Waesberge, 1672. First edition. Hardcover. DIBNER 55: AIR PUMPS AND ELECTRIC GENERATORS. First edition, and a fine copy, of one of the great classics of science. "A book of prime importance in electrical discovery, air-pressure and the vacuum pump" (Dibner). Guericke proved the existence of a vacuum through his famous experiment, illustrated by one of the double-page plates. "At Ratisbon in 1654 Guericke had performed one of the most dramatic experiments in the history of science, when, before the Imperial Diet, he showed how two teams of eight horses each could not separate a bronze pair of hemispheres from which he had exhausted the air" (ibid.). To create the vacuum, Guericke invented the air-pump, and in a series of experiments that followed he demonstrated the weight and elasticity of air. The air-pump became of fundamental importance for the study of the physical properties of gases. Guericke also demonstrated electrical attraction and repulsion, the discharging… Read More