Recent Arrivals from SOPHIA RARE BOOKS

Leiden: Jan Maire, 1637. First edition. 'COGITO, ERGO, SUM' (PMM 129). First edition of Descartes' first and most famous work, and an extremely attractive copy in a strictly contemporary binding with the gilt arms of Louis Treslon-Cauchon, known as Hesselin, one of the most important and distinguished French bibliophiles of the 17th century. Following the Discours, now celebrated as… Read more about this item

Paris: Giraudet for Bachelier, 1824. First edition. DIBNER 155: The mechanical equivalent of heat. First edition, very rare, and a fine copy in original state, of Carnot's only published work, which led directly to the first and second laws of thermodynamics. "Carnot, one of the most original thinkers among physical scientists, applied himself to the analysis of the cyclical… Read more about this item

Basel: Johannes Oporinus, 1555. Second edition. An exceptionally tall and fresh copy in a fine Wittenberg binding by Thomas Krüger. Second folio edition (third overall), of the work that not only revolutionised the understanding of anatomy, but can be said to mark the beginning of modern science. This is a fresh, exceptionally tall copy in a fine Wittenberg binding… Read more about this item

Amsterdam: Etienne Ledet et Compagnie, 1738. First edition. Hardcover. VOLTAIRE ON NEWTON. First edition, first issue, and a fine copy with noble provenance, of Voltaire's only scientific work. "Owing to Descartes' great influence and Newton's dispute with Leibnitz, the spread of his [Newton's] thought on the continent took about fifty years. One of his greatest champions in France was… Read more about this item

London: Macmillan, 1900. First edition. TESLA'S FANTASTIC VISION OF THE FUTURE. First edition, journal issue in original printed wrappers, of Tesla's most detailed presentation of his worldview and his fantastic vision of the future. His prescient thoughts on renewable energy, solar power, food sustainability, and the use of stationary electromagnetic waves to "determine the relative position or course of… Read more about this item

London: Peter Short, 1600. First edition. Hardcover. First edition, an exceptionally fine copy, the nicest we have seen, of the first work of experimental physics published in England. Gilbert was chiefly concerned with magnetism; but as a digression he discusses in his second book the attractive effect of amber (electrum), and thus may be regarded as the founder of… Read more about this item

Paris: H. Drouart, 1621. First edition. LARGE PAPER COPY. Extremely rare large paper copy of the editio princeps of the first systematic treatise on algebra (Smith, Rara Arithmetica, p. 348), comprising the first printing of the Greek text, accompanied by Xylander's Latin translation (1575) and Bachet's commentary. "The Arithmetica is essentially a logistical work, but with the difference that… Read more about this item

Lyon: J. Thiolly, 1670. First edition. DIOPHANTINE PROBLEMS SOLVED USING FERMAT'S METHODS. First edition, rare, of this early treatise on number theory, explicating and extending the indeterminate problems in the Arithmetica of Diophantus (fl. 3rd century AD). It represents an important testament to the early development of this branch of mathematics. Some of the methods used by Billy (1602-79)… Read more about this item

Lilienthal: Auf Kosten des Verfassers, bey demselben und in Commission bey Carl. Gottfr. Fleckeisen ... in Helmstädt. Gedruckt in Göttingen bey Joh. Georg Rosenbusch .., 1791. First edition. A PIONEERING WORK OF THE SCIENCE OF SELENOGRAPHY. First edition, extremely rare when complete, of this important early study of the topography of the Moon. "Schröter was the first to observe… Read more about this item

Cambridge: at the University Press, 1944. First edition. INTRODUCED THE CONCEPT OF A GENETIC CODE. First edition, first impression, of Schrödinger's famous and influential series of lectures on the physical basis of life. Even Schrödinger himself did not suspect that "the book would introduce a new concept to biology, that of a genetic code, and also be considered the… Read more about this item

D. M. Philadelpha: Printed by William Fry for Thomas Dobson, 1814. First edition. THE FIRST HEBREW BIBLE PRINTED IN AMERICA WITH THE EXTREMELY RARE LEAF EXPLAINING ITS GENESIS. First edition of the first Hebrew Bible printed in America, of major importance in the field of American Judaica - this copy with the leaf explaining the genesis of this… Read more about this item

Roe: Manelfo Manelfi, 1648. First edition. COMMENTARY ON ARCHIMEDES' ON THE SPHERE AND CYLINDER . First edition of this rare Galileianum, an explication and extension of the two books of Archimedes' On the sphere and the cylinder, which gave the first exact determination of the area and volume of a curved figure. They "are, of course, exceptional masterpieces. According… Read more about this item

Erlangen: Andreas Deichert, 1872. First edition. THE FAMOUS 'ERLANGEN PROGRAM': THE UNIFICATION OF GEOMETRY. First edition, rare in the original printed wrappers, of Klein's 'Erlangen Program,' his most famous and influential work. 'Klein's most important achievements in geometry, however, were the projective foundation of the non-Euclidean geometries and the creation of the 'Erlangen Progamm'" (DSB). After lecturing at Göttingen… Read more about this item

Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1883. First edition. MACH'S PRINCIPLE. First edition, a copy with outstanding provenance, of "Mach's most important work, in which he presents his criticism of the epistemological and methodological basis of scientific inquiry. In his analysis of the conceptual basis of Newtonian physics, he introduces what Einstein later named the 'Mach principle': the inertia of an isolated… Read more about this item

Rotterdam; A. Leers; London: excudebat J.C. veniuntque [sic] apud J. Crooke, 1662. THE FOUNDING WORK OF MODERN CHEMISTRY. First Latin edition, published one year after the first English edition, of this milestone in the history of chemistry. "His most important work [where he] set down his corpuscular theory of the constitution of matter, which finally freed chemistry from the… Read more about this item

[Göttingen: University of Göttingen, 1931. First edition. WEYL'S OWN ANNOTATED COPIES OF HIS GÖTTINGEN LECTURE NOTES. First edition, Weyl's own annotated copies, of these two extremely rare sets of lecture notes for Weyl's courses at the University of Göttingen on 'Axiomatik' and Invariant theory. Both sets have numerous formulae written by hand, and 'Axiomatik' has additional annotations and deletions… Read more about this item

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… Read more about this item

Paris: Ludovicus de Hequeville, 1642. First edition. THE FIRST PUBLISHED STATEMENT OF THE PRINCIPLE OF INERTIA. First edition, very rare, of this important work, which "contains the first precise published formulation of the principle of inertia" (Jones, p. 63). "Gassendi (1592-1655) did indeed have a deep understanding of Galileo's science and contributed in a crucial way to its dissemination.… Read more about this item

Leiden: Jean Maire, 1631. First edition. On His Calculations About the Size of the Sun. First edition, extremely rare, of this work concerning the angular diameter of the Sun, in which Hortensius was in dispute with Johannes Kepler. This was important, because of its relevance to the determination of the degree of ellipticity of the Earth's orbit, which Kepler… Read more about this item

Florence: Giorgio Marescotti, 1583. First edition. the first true textbook of botany (PMM 97). First edition, and an exceptionally fine copy, of "the first true textbook of botany' (DSB): the introduction of Cesalpino's classification system, which anticipated Linnaeus' system of binomial nomenclature. "Whereas other sixteenth-century botanists were content simply to compile vast haphazard catalogues of plants, Cesalpino was the… Read more about this item