Search Results: Titles starting with M from SOPHIA RARE BOOKS

Pesaro: Girolamo Concordia, 1588. GREEK GEOMETRY - A CRUCIAL INFLUENCE ON DESCARTES. First edition of Pappus' Collection, translated with commentary by Federico Commandino, a princely copy from the notable collection of the great Papal family and patrons of learning, the Piccolomini, Dukes of Amalfi, thence by marriage to the German nobleman von Troilo. The Collection is "by far the most important of Pappus' works ... without it, much of the geometrical achievement of his predecessors would have been lost forever ... The Collection deals with the whole body of Greek geometry, mostly in the form of commentaries on texts which it is assumed the reader has to hand. It reproduces known solutions to problems in geometry; but it also frequently gives Pappus' own solutions, or improvements and extensions to existing solutions. Thus Pappus handles the problem of inscribing five regular solids in a sphere in a way quite different from Euclid; gives a broader generalization than Euclid to the famous… Read More

Hambourg [i.e., Leiden]: [Élie Luzac], 1753. First edition. THE INFAMOUS KÖNIG - MAUPERTUIS - VOLTAIRE POLEMIC - THE COPY OF MAUPERTUIS' CLOSEST FRIEND LA CONDAMINE . First edition, rare, of this collection of pamphlets relating to the 'König affair,' the celebrated polemic on the principle of least action, "perhaps the ugliest of all the famous scientific disputes" (DSB VII: 442). This is an exceptional association copy, from the library of Charles-Marie de la Condamine, Maupertuis' closest friend and scientific colleague; they were jointly responsible for the famous expeditions to determine the length of an arc of the meridian near the poles (Maupertuis) and the equator (La Condamine), the aim being to decide once and for all whether the earth was an oblate or prolate spheroid - whether Isaac Newton or Jacques Cassini had been correct. "La Condamine, three years younger than Maupertuis, one of Maupertuis's closest friends and a participant in the Newtonian campaign, headed the Academy's… Read More

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

London: William Godbid for Moses Pitt, 1671. First edition. A MAJOR ADVANCE IN THE MATHEMATIZATION OF MECHANICS" (DSB). First edition, very rare when complete with the portrait and all three parts, of this classic treatise on mechanics by Newton's most important English precursor. It treats both statics (the balance, the lever, centres of gravity, elasticity, and hydrostatics) and dynamics (including the motion of bodies under gravity, and the first comprehensive treatment of the collision of both hard and elastic bodies). "On these investigations, according to Professor Mach, Sir Isaac Newton based his researches contained in the Principia" (Sotheran 5188). All three of 'Newton's' laws of motion are stated in the Machanica, almost two decades before the publication of the Principia. "The first part deals with various forms of motion in a strictly 'geometrical', that is, Euclidean, manner, starting with definitions followed by propositions. The motion of bodies under the action of gravity is covered… Read More

St. Petersburg: Academy of Sciences, 1736. First edition. THE BIRTH OF ANALYTICAL MECHANICS. First edition of "Euler's famous work on mechanics in which he introduced the use of analytical methods instead of the geometrical methods of Newton and his followers" (Timoshenko, p. 29). Mechanica won the praise of many leading scientists of the time: Johann Bernoulli said of the work that "it does honour to Euler's genius and acumen," while Lagrange in his own Mécanique analytique acknowledged Euler's mechanics to be "the first great work where Analysis has been applied to the science of motion." "In an introduction to the Mechanica Euler outlined a large program of studies embracing every branch of science. The distinguishing feature of Euler's investigations in mechanics as compared to those of his predecessors is the systematic and successful application of analysis. Previously the methods of mechanics had been mostly synthetic and geometrical; they demanded too individual an approach to separate… Read More

St. Petersburg: Academy of Sciences, 1736. First edition. THE BIRTH OF ANALYTICAL MECHANICS. First edition of "Euler's famous work on mechanics in which he introduced the use of analytical methods instead of the geometrical methods of Newton and his followers" (Timoshenko, p. 29). Mechanica won the praise of many leading scientists of the time: Johann Bernoulli said of the work that "it does honour to Euler's genius and acumen," while Lagrange in his own Mécanique analytique acknowledged Euler's mechanics to be "the first great work where Analysis has been applied to the science of motion." "In an introduction to the Mechanica Euler outlined a large program of studies embracing every branch of science. The distinguishing feature of Euler's investigations in mechanics as compared to those of his predecessors is the systematic and successful application of analysis. Previously the methods of mechanics had been mostly synthetic and geometrical; they demanded too individual an approach to separate… Read More

Manchester: Printed by Harrison and Crosfield for Baldwin and Cradock, 1834. DALTON'S FIRST BOOK - INSCRIBED. Second edition (first, 1793), inscribed by Dalton, of Dalton's first book which, according to Dalton himself, "contained the germs of most of the ideas afterwards expanded by him into discoveries" (DNB V, 428-34). Dalton (1766-1844) is famous today for his atomic theory of matter, but this grew out of his early work on meteorology, which resulted in his Meteorological Observations and Essays. "It created little stir at first but contained original ideas that, together with Dalton's more developed articles, marked the transition of meteorology from a topic of general folklore to a serious scientific pursuit" (Britannica). In this book Dalton stated that "water evaporated is not chymically combined with the aerial fluids but exists as a peculiar fluid diffused amongst the rest," and that "when a particle of vapour exists between two particles of air let their equal and opposite pressures upon… Read More

Lausanne & Geneve: Marcum-Michaelem Bosquet & Socios, 1744. First edition. EVANS 9 - CREATED THE CALCULUS OF VARIATIONS. First edition of "Euler's most valuable contribution to mathematics in which he developed the concept of the calculus of variations" (Norman). "'This work displays an amount of mathematical genius seldom rivalled - Cajori. It may be said to have created the calculus of variations" (Evans). "The book brought him immediate fame and recognition as the greatest living mathematician" (Kline, p. 579). Du Pasquier (pp. 50-51) called the Methodus inveniendi "one of the finest monuments of the genius of Euler" who, he continued, "founded the calculus of variations which has become, in the twentieth century, one of the most efficient of the means of investigation employed by mathematicians and physicists. The recent theories of Einstein [i.e., general relativity] and the applications of the principle of relativity have greatly increased the importance of the calculus of variations which… Read More

Venice: Aloysius Pavinus, 1709. First edition. POLENI'S COMPUTER. First edition of Poleni's first book, the second part of which is a description of an early 'arithmetical machine,' or primitive calculator. Babbage had a copy of this work in his library. "Poleni's earliest paper was Miscellanea: de barometris et thermometris; de machinaquadam arithmetiea; de sectionibus conicis in horologiis solaribus describendis (Venice, 1709). A treatise on assorted topics, it includes a dissertation on barometers ... and on thermometers, in which several improvements are proposed; also included is the design of an arithmetic machine based on reports that Poleni had received of those of Pascal and of Leibniz. Poleni actually built this machine, which was reportedly very simple and easy to operate; but when he heard of another machine presented to the emperor by the Viennese mechanician Braun, he destroyed his own and never rebuilt it" (DSB). "Poleni'scalculator - in the shape of a big grandfather clock, in wood… Read More

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: Bernard, 1808. First edition. EVANS (37) - THE TRUE FIRST PUBLICATION OF FOURIER SERIES. First printing, extremely rare, of the discovery of Fourier series, and their application to the mathematical theory of heat, appearing here 14 years before Fourier's famous Théorie analytique de la chaleur. "This work marks an epoch in the history of both pure and applied mathematics. It is the source of all modern methods in mathematical physics ... The gem of Fourier's great book is 'Fourier series'" (Cajori, A History of Mathematics, p. 270). "The methods that Fourier used to deal with heat problems were those of a true pioneer because he had to work with concepts that were not yet properly formulated. He worked with discontinuous functions when others dealt with continuous ones, used integral as an area when integral as an anti-derivative was popular, and talked about the convergence of a series of functions before there was a definition of convergence ... such methods were to prove fruitful in… Read More

Paris: de Bure Frères, 1829. First edition. Hardcover. COUNTING REAL ROOTS. First edition, very rare, of Cauchy's important memoir on the determination of the real roots of polynomial equations. As stated in the 'Avertissement', this is a (separately-paginated) offprint from Cauchy's Exercises de Mathématiques, Quatrième Année, 1829 (journal pagination 65-128). The problem of determining the real roots of an equation was a famous one with a long history, having been considered by Descartes (who gave an upper bound for the number of real roots in his famous 'rule of signs'), Newton (who gave an upper bound for the size of any real root), Lagrange and Fourier (who gave upper bounds for the number of roots by considering the sequence of derivatives), and others, but Cauchy was the first to give a complete solution in his paper 'Memoire sur la Détermination du Nombre des Racines réelles dans les Équations algébriques', published in 1815. The method was cumbersome and impractical, however, and… Read More

Paris: Mallet-Bachelier, 1862. First edition. PMM 336 - THE REFUTATION OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. First edition, very rare offprint, inscribed by Pasteur. "The longest and most important of Pasteur's papers on spontaneous generation, describing the series of classic experiments with bent-necked and sealed flasks by which he proved conclusively that fermentation and putrefaction are not the products of spontaneous generation, but result from contamination by airborne micro-organisms. Pasteur's experiments also mark the beginning of microbiology since, by showing how to sterilize a liquid and keep it sterile, he opened up the possibility of culturing and studying a single micro-organism in the absence of any others. Pasteur's paper was first printed in Vol. 16 of the Annales des sciences naturelles, Zoologie, 4th series (1861), but no offprints were made from this journal printing. The present offprint, printed in a small edition, was made from the Annales de chimie et de physique, 3rd series (1862),… Read More

Paris: Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy at l'Imprimerie Royale, 1676. First edition. 'ONE OF THE GREAT BOOKS IN THE HISTORY OF BOTANICAL ILLUSTRATION' (HUNT) . First edition of "one of the great books in the history of botanical illustration, where all the technical resources of engraving were utilized in presenting the plants as accurately as possible" (Hunt), here accompanied by 5 additional engraved plates. "The idea had originated with Claude Perrault in 1667. When Dionys Dodart (1634-1707) was elected to the Académie in 1673, the proposal took definite shape, and at the end of 1675, the latter's Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire des Plantes was published by the Royal Press. This volume, a large folio, was planned as the prelude to a vast work whose publication was delayed for many years. Its 39 plates were engraved from drawings by Nicolas Robert (1614-85), made for the most part from life; in the case of several rare plants he was obliged to adapt paintings which he had previously made on vellum at… 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

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1888. First edition. THE BIRTH OF CINEMATOGRAPHY: THE FOUNDATION OF THE MOVIE INDUSTRY. A remarkable collection of offprints documenting Marey's foundational contributions to the science of cinematography. Marey was "the lead character in the birth of scientific cinema" (Tosi, p. 82); he "was the first to use a single camera to produce photographs on a strip of sensitized film in real time, rapidly enough for the illusion of movement to be reconstituted for more than a single viewer at once ... Marey's contribution to the history of cinema began on 15 October 1888 with an announcement to the Académie des Sciences, the forum for all his presentations. Before he described his photographic experiments with the revolving mirror, he declared his intention to make a series of images on a long band of sensitized paper, 'animated by a rapid translation with stoppages at the moment of pose.' Two weeks later he presented the members of the Académie with the first series of pictures… Read More

London: Macmillan, 1953. First edition. ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY. First edition, in the form in which it first appeared, of one of the most important scientific papers of the twentieth century, 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). The paper ended with one of the most famous understatements in the history of science: "It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a… Read More

St. Albans: Fisher, Knight & Co, 1953. First edition. DISCOVERY OF THE STRUCTURE OF DNA. SIGNED BY ALL BUT ONE OF THE AUTHORS. First edition, offprint, signed by Watson, Crick, Wilkins, Gosling, Stokes & Wilson, i.e. six of the seven authors. We know of no copy signed by Franklin, and strongly doubt that any such copy exists. Furthermore this copy is, what we believe to be, just one of three copies signed by six authors. One of the most important scientific papers of the twentieth century, 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… Read More

American Physical Society: Lancaster, PA, 1939. First edition. THE STANDARD THEORY OF THE MECHANISM OF NUCLEAR FISSION - ESSENTIAL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ATOMIC BOMB. First edition, extremely rare offprint, of this seminal paper, which presents the first comprehensive theory of nuclear fission, discovered just six months earlier by Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann. This theory was essential for the development of the atomic bomb. "The theory of Bohr and Wheeler was accepted, and continued to remain ever since, as the standard description of the mechanism of nuclear fission" (Mehra & Rechenberg, The Historical Development of Quantum Theory 6, p. 1006). "Wheeler's technical mastery of physics is best seen in the classic paper of Bohr and Wheeler, 'The Mechanism of Nuclear Fission' (1939), published on the day when Hitler's armies marched into Poland and World War II began. Bohr and Wheeler wrote the paper in Princeton, where Bohr was visiting in the spring of 1939, a few months after the discovery of… Read More