Classic Science, Microscopy, & Optics
Amsterdam: Pierre le Grand. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST VOLUME OF THE AMSTERDAM EDITION OF THE JOURNAL DES SÇAVANS FOR THE YEARS 1665 & 1666. The full content can be viewed at the Gallica web portal. Robert Hooke’s magnificent and revolutionary Micrographia also appeared in 1665 and the... More
2000. 1st Edition. Tsien Hsue-shen (1911-2009) was a scientist who made important contributions to the missile and space programs of both the United States and the People’s Republic of China. NASA documents commonly refer to him at H. S. Tsien. During the 1940s, Tsien was one of the founders of... More
New Haven: G. P. Putnam & Co. 1854. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF A SEMINAL PAPER by David Alter announcing the invention of spectral analysis, the revolutionary idea that every element has its own emission spectrum. A critical development in spectroscopy, Alter studied atomic spectra, the light given off by... More
Stockholm: P. A. Norstedt. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OFFPRINT OF A LANDMARK WORK ON GLOBAL WARMING AND THE FIRST ACTUAL EXPLORATION OF THE 'GREENHOUSE EFFECT.' Building on Joseph Fourier’s earlier work, Arrhenius here presents his discovery of the absorption of radiation by the atmosphere, thus and providing the first quantitative... More
FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF THE INVENTION OF THE DOUBLE FOCUSING SPECTROMETER. In 1936, Kenneth Bainbridge and Edward Jordan built a double focusing spectrometer at Harvard University. In 1919 Aston developed the first really good mass spectrograph, an instrument for measuring the masses of isotopes; his apparatus gave accuracies... More
Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1845. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION of the first experimental verification of the Doppler effect with sound waves. For this paper, “acoustic tests on the Dutch railway plus remarks on the theory of Professor Doppler,” “Buys” Ballot, a Dutch chemist and meteorologist, put a group of musicians... More
London: Taylor and Francis, 1904. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF THE BRACE EXPERIMENT, "THE FIRST OPTICAL EXPERIMENT MEASURING THE RELATIVE MOTION OF EARTH AND THE LUMINIFEROUS AETHER WHICH WERE SUFFICIENTLY PRECISE TO DETECT MAGNITUDES OF SECOND ORDER TO V/C" (Wikipedia). Brace's results were negative, "which was of gret importance for... More
1934. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF NATURE’S SPECIAL 11 PAGE SUPPLEMENT ON LIQUID CRYSTALS BY NOBEL PRIZE WINNER SIR WILLIAM BRAGG. This is the first time “a coherent story has been made of the optical principles [of liquid crystals] by which their characteristic behaviour is exhibited” (Editors... More
1829. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION of the second paper Robert Brown wrote on the subject of Brownian motion, the random motion of microscopic particles suspended in a liquid. Brownian motion is sometimes referred to as particle theory. In this paper, Brown discusses the observations of others, describes additional observations that... More
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1922. 1st Edition. SCARCE CONTEMPORARY JOURNAL REPRINT "A Photo-electric Theory of Color Vision" is Clark's challenge to the other theories holding sway at that time; among them, that of Young-Helmholz, the Hering and Ladd-Franklin theory, Leboucq's, Joly's, and Cajal's. CONDITION & DETAILS: Baltimore: John Hopkins University. Bound... More
Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Bart, 1854. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION of the seminal paper in which Clausius fully presents his milestone formulation of the second law of thermodynamics, namely, that "Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same... More
Cotes, Roger WITH Halley, Edmund [Halleio] WITH Cotes, Roger WITH Newton, Isaac; Desaguliers, J. T. WITH Taylor, Brook
London: Royal Society. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION of Roger Cotes' "Logometria Auctore Rogero Cotes," his only paper and the one in which he provides the first proof of the relation between exponential function to trigonometric functions -- the identity now known as Euler's formula. The Phil Trans is the oldest... More
London: Taylor and Francis, 1855. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF A “SEMINAL” WORK, FICK’S CLASSICAL EQUATION OF DIFFUSION (Philibert, Fick, Einstein, Before and Beyond, 2005, 3). The laws Fick presents in this paper remain “the empirical foundations of many phenomena in the macroscopic world” and were... More
Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1855. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF A “SEMINAL” WORK, FICK’S CLASSICAL EQUATION OF DIFFUSION (Philibert, Fick, Einstein, Before and Beyond, 2005, 3). The laws Fick presents in this paper remain “the empirical foundations of many phenomena in the macroscopic world” and were of significant import to... More
Gabor, D. [Dennis] WITH Berriman, R. W. WITH Herz, R. H.
London: Macmillan and Co. 1948. 1st Edition. BOUND FIRST EDITION OF THREE SIGNIFICANT PAPERS: (1) GABOR PAPER: Gabor’s initial announcement of the “invention and development of the holographic method”; at that time, he called his new technology an ‘electron interference microscope’ (Nobel Prize; Gabor, Nature, 161, 1948, p. 778). “The... More
London: Royal Society, 1949. 1st Edition. BOUND FIRST EDITION OF GABOR’S FIRST EXTENSIVE PRESENTATION OF HIS 1971 NOBEL PRIZE WINNING “INVENTION & DEVELOPMENT OF THE HOLOGRAPHIC METHOD” (Nobel Prize). This work includes Gabor’s first use of the word ‘hologram’ as well as three photographic plates. In 1948 Gabor sent a.... More
London: Harrison & Sons. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITIONS of Francis Galton’s important 1890 and 1891 papers providing a scientific basis and model for fingerprint identification and analysis, offered here in separate leather bound volumes. Galton provides a detailed statistical model of fingerprint analysis and identification and encourages its use; the... More
Lancaster: American Institute of Physics, 1963. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF GLAUBER'S NOBLE PRIZE WINNING QUANTUM THEORY OF OPTICAL COHERENCE, the quantum mechanical basis of different types of light. Glauber’s seminal theory, at first controversial but now widely used in the field of quantum optics, differentiates between laser (coherent) light... More
Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1963. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF GLAUBER'S NOBLE PRIZE WINNING QUANTUM THEORY OF OPTICAL COHERENCE, the quantum mechanical basis of different types of light. Glauber’s seminal theory, at first controversial but now widely used in the field of quantum optics, differentiates between laser... More
Gordon, J. P.; Zeiger, H. J.; and Townes, C. H. + Van Hove, Leon
Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1954. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL PAPER WRAPS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNING CONSTRUCTION OF THE FIRST AMPLIFICATION AND GENERATION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES BY STIMULATED EMISSION -- THE FIRST AMMONIA MASER. Townes coined the word 'maser' for this device, an acronym for microwave amplification by... More
Halley, Edmund [Halleio] WITH Cotes, Roger WITH Newton, Isaac; Desaguliers, J. T. WITH Taylor, Brook
London: Royal Society. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF A NUMBER OF IMPORTANT HALLEY PAPERS, INCLUDING TWO ON THE ASTRONOMICAL PHENOMENA OF OBJECTS IN THE SKY IN THE SKY THAT PRODUCE LIGHT BUT DO NOT CONTAIN A SUN 'NEBULAE.' The Phil Trans is the oldest continuously published journal of... More
London: William Wesley & Son, 1894. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION. EXCEPTIONALLY SCARCE. In the late 19th century, George Cornish Sutton Higgs, a British watchmaker and optician proficient in the sciences, built an extraordinary spectrograph and employed it to greatly advance the application of photography to the study of solar spectra... More
1802. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION EXTRACT OF A PAPER BY LUKE HOWARD THAT DEMOLISHES JAMES HUTTON’S THEN PERVASIVE 1788 THEORY OF RAIN (Thornes, John Constable’s Skies, 190). James Hutton’s theory “was purely qualitative and completely wrong” (ibid). Though he ‘demolished’ Hutton’s theory, Howard was not able to suggest a better... More
1880. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION. SCARCE AND NEAR FINE OFFPRINT IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF HUGGINS'S DETAILED 1880 FOLLOWUP TO HIS VISIONARY BUT PRELIMINARY 1876 PAPER ON THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF STAR SPECTRA. INCLUDED IS A CUT SIGNATURE OF HUGGINS’S ABOVE WHICH IS PRINTED HIS ADDRESS IN LONDON; further still, the words... More
Dublin: A. Ewing and W. Smith, 1745. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING OF A RARE 18th c. WORK INCLUSIVE OF NEWTON’S WRITINGS ON THE AETHER, A LETTER FROM NEWTON TO BOYLE ON THE SUBJECT, & ROBINSON’S OWN WRITINGS TRYING TO ACCOUNT FOR ANIMAL MOTIONS BY NEWTON’S PRINCIPLES. It gathers... More
![Le journal des sçavans de l'an 1665 [& 1666], par le sieur de Hedouville. Amsterdam, Pierre le Grand [D. Elzevier], 1679. [French title: Le journal des scavans, tome premier, ou sont continues les annees 1665 & 1666]](/pictures/thumb/1001_1.jpg?v=1518211154)
!["Ueber den Einfluss des atmosphärischen Kohlensäuregehalts auf die Temperatur der Erdoberfläche" [offprint from: K. Svenska Vet.-Akad. Handlingar, 22 1.1]. 1896. Svante August Arrhenius.](/pictures/thumb/908_1.jpg?v=1503861533)
![“Liquid Crystals” [Special Supplement] in Nature 133, No. 3360, March 24, 1934. Sir William Bragg.](/pictures/thumb/973_1.jpg?v=1508089295)
!["Logometria Auctore Rogero Cotes" pp. 5-45 (Cotes); WITH "The Art of Living under Water: Or, a Discourse concerning the Means of Furnishing Air at the Bottom of the Sea in Any Ordinary Depths" (pp. 492-499); "An Account of Several Extraordinary Meteors or Lights in the Sky" (pp. 159-164); "An Account of Several Nebulae or Lucid Spots Like Clouds, Lately Discovered among the Fixt Stars by Help of the Telescope" (pp. 390-392);"Methodus Singularis Qua Solis Parallaxis Sive Distantia a Terra" pp. 454-464; (Halley) WITH "An Account of Some Experiments of Light and Colours Formerly Made by Sir Isaac Newton, and Mention'd in His Opticks" pp. 433-447 (Newton and Desaguliers); "A Plain and Easy Experiment to Confirm Sir Isaac Newton's Doctrine of the Different Refrangibility of the Rays of Light" pp. 448-452; WITH "An Account of an Experiment made by Dr. Brook Taylor assisted by Mr. Hauksbee, in order to discover the Law of Magnetical Attraction" pp. 294-295 (Taylor) In: Philosophical Transactions. Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies and Labours of the Ingenious, In many Considerable Parts of the World, Volume XXIX [29], For the Years 1714, 1715, 1716. London: Printed for W. Innys, at the Princes-Arms in St. Paul's Church-Yard. 1717. Roger WITH Halley Cotes, Edmund, Roger WITH Newton Halleio WITH Cotes, Isaac, J. T. WITH Taylor Desaguliers, Brook.](/pictures/thumb/335_1.jpg?v=1503861475)
![“On Liquid Diffusion”, The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science, X [10], 1855, pp. 30-39. A. Fick, Adolf.](/pictures/thumb/923_1.jpg?v=1503861535)
![Gabor, D. [Dennis] WITH Berriman, R. W. WITH Herz, R. H. “A New Microscopic Principle” [Gabor, pp. 777-778] WITH “Electron Tracks in Photographic Emulsions” [Berriman p. 432] WITH “Electron Tracks in Photographic Emulsions” [Herz, pp. 928-929] in Nature, Volume 161, 1948. D. Gabor, R. W. WITH Herz Dennis WITH Berriman, R. H.](/pictures/thumb/925_1.jpg?v=1503861536)
!["An Account of Several Extraordinary Meteors or Lights in the Sky" pp. 159-164; "An Account of Several Nebulae or Lucid Spots Like Clouds, Lately Discovered among the Fixt Stars by Help of the Telescope" pp. 390-392;"Methodus Singularis Qua Solis Parallaxis Sive Distantia a Terra" pp. 454-464; "The Art of Living under Water: Or, a Discourse concerning the Means of Furnishing Air at the Bottom of the Sea in Any Ordinary Depths" pp. 492-499 (Halley) WITH "Logometria Auctore Rogero Cotes" pp. 5-45 (Cotes); "An Account of Some Experiments of Light and Colours Formerly Made by Sir Isaac Newton, and Mention'd in His Opticks" pp. 433-447 (Newton and Desaguliers); "A Plain and Easy Experiment to Confirm Sir Isaac Newton's Doctrine of the Different Refrangibility of the Rays of Light" pp. 448-452; "An Account of an Experiment made by Dr. Brook Taylor assisted by Mr. Hauksbee, in order to discover the Law of Magnetical Attraction" pp. 294-295 (Taylor) In: Philosophical Transactions. Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies and Labours of the Ingenious, In many Considerable Parts of the World, Volume XXIX [29], For the Years 1714, 1715, 1716. London: Printed for W. Innys, at the Princes-Arms in St. Paul's Church-Yard. 1717. Edmund Halley, Roger WITH Newton Halleio WITH Cotes, Isaac, J. T. WITH Taylor Desaguliers, Brook.](/pictures/thumb/333_1.jpg?v=1503861475)
![Sir Isaac Newton’s Account of the Aether [æther, ether]. With Some Additions by Way of Appendix. Dublin: G. and A. Ewing, and W. Smith, 1745. Isaac Newton, Bryan Robinson.](/pictures/thumb/727_1.jpg?v=1503861509)