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Chicago, Open Court, 1902. Small 8vo. Orig. full red cloth. Wear to topof spine. Old owners name on title-page. VII,143 pp., textfigs. Clean and fine. First English edition of Hilbert's "Grundlagen der Geometrie" from 1899, one of the most influential publications in 2oth Century mathematics. Throughout the 19th century geometry was developed far beyond our intuitive conception of space; hyperbolic geometry was discovered by Gauss, Bolyai, and Lobachevsky and elliptic geometry by Riemann. However, Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry still involved an intuitive idea about the concepts 'point', 'line', 'lies on', 'between', etc. In his 'Grundlagen' Hilbert set out to give a strictly formal formulation of geometry were points, lines, planes are nothing more than abstract symbols and concepts as 'lies on' are simply algebraic relations between these symbols. Through his method Hilbert could analyse independence and completeness of the axioms for geometry and he presented a new smaller set of axioms for Euclidean geometry. It can not be said that the 'Grundlagen' contains new and surprising discoveries, its importance lies in the great influence which Hilbert's method had on all fields of mathematics, and even other sciences as physics, chemistry, and biology. The 'Grundlagen' initiated a whole new paradigm shift and eventually evolved mathematics, throughout the 20th century, into a network of axiomatic formal systems.

Leipzig, Ambrosius Barth, 1903. 8vo. In full black cloth with gilt lettering to spine. In "Annalen der Physik", Vierte Folge, Band 12. Entire volume offered. Library labels to front end papers and stamp to title page, otherwise fine and clean. Pp. 714-44. [Entire volume: VIII, 1184 pp. + 3 plates.]. First appearance of Lenard's important paper in which he for the first time documented that cathode rays can traverse atoms themselves thus creating the very first scattering experiment."In 1903 Lenard studied in detail the absorption of cathode rays, i.e., electrons, by different materials. He found that they can traverse quite thick layers of solid matter and concluded that the cathode rays must be able to traverse the atoms themselves. He therefore assumed that the atoms are composed of 'finer constituents' which he called dynamides, ' with many free spaces between them' such that the cathode rays could pass through these free spaces. Lenard was the first to probe the structure of the atom by shooting particles at it. Such scattering experiments with atoms or its constituents as targets are done to this day." (The Harvest of a Century)."Lenard was in fact able to infer from the absorption of the cathode rays by matter the correct conclusion that the effective center of the atom is concentrated in a tiny fraction of the atomic volume previously accepted in the kinetic theory of gases. Lenard’s "dynamide" was an important predecessor of the atomic model of Rutherford, who in 1910-1911, on the basis of the deflections of a particles, drew the same conclusion as Lenard had earlier from the scattering of electrons." (DSB).

Paris, Olivier de Varennes, 1640. 8vo. In contemporary full calf with four raised bands and richly gilt spine. Small paper-label pasted on to top of spine. Back board with a bit of loss of leather, showing the wooden boards underneath. Head of spine with minor loss of leather. Dampstain to lower half of leaves. (22), 338 pp. First French translation of Brerewood’s influential work “Enquiries touching the diversity of languages and religions, through the chief parts of the world”, 1614, which was one of the earliest works dealing with ethnology, the origin of language and the science of religions."The author devotes a portion of the work to the first peopling of America, claiming the Tatars as their forefathers" (Sabin). Sabin 7733

Hamburg, Bohn, 1773. 8vo. Uniformly bound in two contemporary marbled paper covered cardboard-binding. Paper-label pasted on to top of spines. Spine-ends chipped and corners bumped. Internally very nice and clean. (16), 496, (24) pp.; (8), 232, (30) pp. First complete edition of this groundbreaking work that was later elevated to the status of a classic through the development of behavioral research.

Paris, Guerin & Delatour, 1754. Small 8vo. Cont. full mottled calf. Spine ends worn. Raised bands, richly gilt back. Gilt titlelabel in leather. Back a little rubbed. XXXVI,444 pp. and 8 folded engraved plates. Stamp on title. Internally clean, printed on good paper. Second edition. "The author lay down a theory, according to which the cause of electrical phenomena is the effluence and affluence of a subtile fluid which is everywhere present. Some interesting experiments are described with vacuum tubes also on the influence of electric charges on the growth of plants." (Wheeler). - Poggendorff II:296.

Kiøbenhavn, Stein, 1778-79. Lille 8vo. 2 samtidige hldrbd. med rygforgyldning og skindtitler på rygge. Rygge med lettere brugsspor. Hjørner lidt stødte. XXXXIV,493;(2),518 pp. Indvendig ren. Den sjældne originaludgave "Om Hierakiet og Pave=Magten...", som indgår som en selvstændig del af Rothe's store historisk-filosofiske værk "Christendommens Virkning paa Folkenes Tilstand i Europa". - Bibl. Danica II:468.

Berlin, Springer, 1935. 8vo. In contemporary halv cloth with gilt lettering to spine. In "Zeitschrift für Physik", Bd. 95, 1936. Entire volume offered. Stamp to front free end-paper and titlepage, Extremities with light soiling. Pp. 752-62. [Entire volume: VIII, 818 pp.]. First appearance of this important paper which constitute the first description of the fundamental principles behind modern high power linear beam microwave electron tubes."They described a transit-time tube in which the three characteristic features; velocity modulation, phase focusing, and energy transfer were designed to occur in three separate regions, an arrangement which is also characteristic of a klystron. Further they demonstrated, in my opinion for the first time, that it is necessary, in order to achieve high RF power output, to use a linear electron beam, and that the beam must be positioned in such a way as to prevent the electrons from landing on RF electrodes - they must only be allowed to penetrate the fringe field of the RF electrodes, finally landing on a separate electrode, now called the collector. This arrangement made it possible to separate high frequency from beam guiding electrodes, thus permitting the use of high power electron beams" (Sarkar, History of Wireless). "which outlined the fundamental working principles of the klystron tube, a high power microwave oscillator, used to provide the transmitter power in the newly developed radar equipment. Leaving Arsenjeva in Russia, he later moved to the UK to continue development work on the klystron with Standard Telephones and Cables (STC), the UK arm of ITT. The day before England went to war with Germany Heil slipped out of the country returning to Germany to continue his work at Standard Electric Lorentz (SEL), ITT's German arm in Berlin. Heil's klystrons, known as "Heil's Generators", became key components in Germany's World War II radars.""After the war Heil's name appeared on an FBI list of Germans accused of war crimes. He was brought to the US by the military and worked at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Subsequently he formed his own company and carried out intensive research the physiology of the human ear and sound generation by small animals which he applied to the design of sound transducers. His 1973 patent for the Heil Air Motion Transformer (AMT) made him well known to HiFi buffs."

Berlin, Springer 1931. 8vo. In contemporary halv cloth with gilt lettering to spine. In "Zeitschrift für Physik", Bd. 69, 1931. Entire issue offered. Stamp to front free end-paper and titlepage, otherwise fine and clean. pp.56-69. [Entire volume: VII, (1), 861 pp.]. First printing of Landau and Peierls's important paper in the development of quantum field theory. The present paper became seminal for Bohr and Rosenfeld's 1933 paper which is often credited with having laid the foundation for quantum electrodynamics.Landau and Peierls published a critical analysis of the consequences of such limitations in a relativistic quantum theory of fields (second paper offered). Landau and Peierls came to the negative conclusion that in several cases, the concept of momentum was without physical meaning and quantities such as the strength of a field was un-measurable.

London and New York, Macmillan and Co., 1871. Royal8vo. In publisher's original red embossed cloth. In "Nature. A Weekly Illustrated Journal of Science", Vol. 4, April-October 1871. Stamp to title-page and p. 1 and ex-libris pasted on to pasted down front end-paper. Binding with wear and light soiling, spine partly detached with a 7 cm long tear to rear hindge. Internally fine and clean. Darwin's paper: Pp.180-181. [Entire volume: XII, 520 pp]. First appearance of Darwin’s short notice to Henry Hoyle Howorth (1842-1923), geologist and naturalist. F1754

(No place), The Association for Symbolic Logic, 1942. Large 8vo. Bound in blue half cloth with silver lettering to spine. In "Journal of Symbolic Logic", Volume 7. Small paper label to lower part of spine and upper inner margin of front board. Stamp to title-page and last leaf, otherwise internally fine. Pp. 28-33; 146-156 (Entire copy: (4), 180 pp.). First appearance of these two paper's by Turing.Turing's paper "A Formal Theorem in Church's Theory of Types" is a significant contribution to the fields of computer science and mathematical logic. By providing a formal proof within Church's theory, Turing expanded our understanding of computation and its relationship to logic. His work on computability and the theory of types laid the foundation for the development of theoretical computer science, proof theory, and automated reasoning. Turing's paper continues to be a landmark in the study of computation, inspiring further research and practical applications in diverse areas of science and technology. In "The Use of Dots as Brackets in Church's System", introducing the dot parentheses notation, Turing simplified the representation and manipulation of lambda calculus expressions, making them more intuitive and manageable. His work highlighted the relationship between syntax and semantics, laying the foundation for further research in formal semantics and the development of programming languages. Turing's paper continues to be influential, shaping the way complex expressions are represented and reasoned about in the fields of computation, formal systems, and logic.

Kiøbenhavn, Trykt paa Autoris Bekostning (Tome II:) Ernst Henrich Berling, 1742. 4to. Samtidigt hellæderbind med spejl på begge permer. Rig rygforgyldning. Let slid ved øverste kapitæl. Mangler titeletiketten. (8),722,(8),736 pp. Velbevaret, rent eksemplar. Originaludgaven. - Ehr.-M. X:301.

Leipzig, J. A. Barth, 1906. Contemp. hcloth. Light wear to edges. A small tear at upper part of fronthinge. "Annalen der Physik. Vierte Folge. Band 21. Hrsg. von W.Wien und M. Planck". VIII,1056 pp.and 9 plates. Einstein paper: pp. 583-86. Internally clean and fine. The whole volume offered. First edition. Einsten describes in this paper "Method for the determination of the ratio of the transversal to the longitudinal mass of the electron", an apparatus which would make it possible to determine with great accuracy the law according to which the mass of the electron changes with the velocity. - Weil No 14.

London, L. Davis and C. Reymers, 1763. 4to. Without wrappers. Extracted from "Philosophical Transactions", vol. 52, part II. Including title-page of volume (detached). A fine copy. Pp. 457-464 + title-page. First appearance of this paper in which the relationships between the temperatures of various materials") and their conductivity or non-conductivity is being discussed.

Hafniæ (Copenhagen), 1762. 8vo. In contemporary full calf with four raised bands and gilt lettering to spine and small paper-label pasted on to top of spine. Light wear to boards, otherwise a nice and clean copy. (8), 312 pp. Rare first edition of Jonge's religious and theological treatise on marriage, specifically designed as a guide for wedding sermons.

Leipzig, Barth, 1887. 8vo. Bound in contemporary half cloth with gilt lettering to spine. In "Annalen der Physik und Chemie. Hrsg. von G. Wiedemann", Neue Folge, Bd. XXXII". Entire volume offered. Title page and first leaf of content page detached and with marginal tears. Otherwise a fine copy. Pp. 462-503. [Entire volume: VIII, 704 pp. + 5 folded plates]. First appearance of Planck's seminal paper on entropy carrying the general title "On the principles of Increase of Entropy" in which he applied the second law of thermodynamics to chemical problems. The paper is part of the 4 paper series on the subject."His goal was, as he said in the first paper of the series, to carry further the "grand generalization" of Helmholtz, Josiah Willard Gibbs, and others: like the first principle of the mechanical heat theory, the second, the "Carnot-Clausius", principle applies not only to heat phenomena but to all kinds of physical and chemical phenomena; and because the second principle applies not only to reversible processes but also to irreversible, or "natural", processes, it applies to all processes whatsoever..."(Jungnickel and McCormach "Intellectual Mastery of Nature, vol. 2, pp. 52 ff.)What Einstein admired and called Planck's "first great scientific discovery" was the generality of its formulas which contain all that can be derived from pure thermodynamic principles. Einstein referred to the third paper in this series with the title "Gesetze des Eintritts beliebiger thermodynamischer und chemischer Reactionen"

Kjøbenhavn, November, 1862. Large manuscript plate of the fortification, paper-size 61 x 81 cm. and handcoloured. Drawn by Wüstenberg, Sergeant, Copenhagen, 1862. Also with a transverse section and scale.

New York, American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 1951. 8vo. In the original printed blue wrappers. In "The Bell System Technical Journal.", Volume XXX, October, 1951, No. 4, Part II. The entire volume offered. Pp. 1041-1077. [Entire volume: pp. 1041-1255]. Wear to spine, otherwise very fine. Previous owner's name [Regnar Svensson] to front wrapper. Internally fine and clean. First publication of the highly influential radio system TD-2. The TD-2 was the backbone of all transcontinental television broadcasting and long distance telephone traffic, before satellite transmission was made possible. This paper is one out of three selected papers from Bell System Technical Journal to be saved in the Westinghouse Time Capsule II. Time Capsule II was created for the 1964 New York World's Fair and is not to be opened until the year 6939, four thousand years after the first time capsule was created. "The first transcontinental microwave radio system was the AT&T TD-2 route from New York to San Francisco. This system employed 100 repeater stations operating in the 4-GHz band using a 20-MHz channel bandwidth to relay 480 voices channels on a frequency modulated radio carrier "(Ishii, Thomas Koryu, Handbook of Microwave Technology, 1995, p. 449).

Paris, Sommaville, 1664. 12mo (150 x 90 mm). In contemporary full sprinkled calf with five raised bands. Small paper label pasted on to top of spine (indicating an inventory in an estate library). Light wear to extremities and light damp to first leaf, otherwise a fine copy. (4), 217, (2).

Small 8vo. Cont. full vellum. 2 engraved frontisp., 2 titlepages. (56),432 - (8),384,(24) pp. having the large folded engraved map: "Besonders Post und Reise Carte der Wege durch Teutschland (32 x 40 cm.), but lacking the 3 other maps. Holzmann-Bohatta III:11756. This work, first issued 1703, became the prototype for travelling books like the Baedekers.

La Haye, Pierre Gosse, 1730. Uncut in contemp. marbled boards. autographed title on spine. Stamp on title-page. Title in red/black. (4),128,(8),(4),74,(2),88 pp., 7 folded engraved plates. Wide-margined and clean. Klaus Jordan, 1487.

Ulm, Stettin'sche Buchhandlung, 1840. Nice contemp. hcalf. Gilt back. On lower part of back a paperlabel pasted on. Stamp on title and verso. XII,230 pp. Light scattered brownspots. Otherwise a good copy. The scarce first edition.

Halæ Magdeburgicæ (Halle), Orphanotropheum, 1725. 8vo. In contemporary gold floral paper covered boards. Wear to extremities, corners bumped. With numerous underlignings and marginal annotations in contemporary hand throughout. (14), 48, 784, (92), 214, (4) pp. + frontispiece. The fourth edition of the Ludovici’s Pandect Lecture at the University of Halle which marked an important moment in German legal education. Embracing Stryk's perspective while refuting the anti-Romanist notions of Thomasius, it underlined Ludovici's influence. Ludovici revolutionized legal pedagogy by giving lectures and making textbooks in German, a novelty at the time.

Dessau, Kosten der Verlags-Kasse, 1782 - 1783. 8vo. Uniformly bound in two contemporary full calf bindings with five raised bands and richly gilt spines. All edges coloured in red. Wear to extremities, with slight loss of leather to spineends, showing headbands. Previous owner's stamp to both title-pages. Previous owner's name stamped to both title-pages. XVI, 374, (16) pp.; (6), 454, (10) pp. First edition of Herder’s work on the aesthetic, spiritual and cultural dimensions of Hebrew poetry. Herder believed that understanding ancient Hebrew poetry was essential to grasp the development of human expression and the human spirit. He emphasizes the poetic quality of the Bible not merely as a religious text but as an expression of the human experience and emotional life.

Berlin, Springer, 1943. 8vo. In contemporary halv cloth with gilt lettering to spine. In "Zeitschrift für Physik", Bd. 120, 1943. Entire volume offered. Stamp to front free end-paper and titlepage, otherwise fine and clean. Pp. 513-538; Pp. 673-702. [Entire volume: VII, (1), 790 pp.]. First printing of Heisenberg's two seminal paper on the scattering matrix, or S-matrix. ""S-matrix" theory of particle scattering, especially in its later analytic forms, enjoyed considerable attention after the war, then again during the 1960's" (DSB). These papers are ranked by David Cassidy as being amoung his most important."The outbreak of world war in September 1939 profoundly affected Heisenberg and his career. Still of military age, he was ordered to report to the Army We apons Bureau (Heereswaffenamt) in Berlin. There the authorities asked him and other leading German nuclear physicists to investigate whether nuclear fission, discovered in Berlin a year earlier, could be used for large-scale energy production. Within two months Heisenberg completed a comprehensive report on the theory of chain reactions and their uses, including their use in an atomic bomb. Thereport made Heisenberg the leading specialist on nuclear energy in Germany.In order to continue the promising research, the Army Weapons Bureau designated the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin the center of German fission research. After the departure of the institute's Dutchdirector, peter Debye, who chose emigration over German citizenship, Heisenberg was named adviser, and later acting director, of the institute and its nuclear research. At the same time, Heisenberg supervised preliminary reactor experiments in Leipzig. He also continued with high-energy interactions. In papers written between 1942 and 1944, Heisenberg developed a theory of particle collisions based, as in 1925, only upon the observable properties of the colliding particles. Theresulting "S-matrix" theory of particle scattering, especially in its later analytic forms, enjoyed considerable attention after the war, then again during the 1960's but renormalized field theories eventually found more followers." (DSB)Cassidy 1943a, 1943b

Berlin, Gottfried Hayn, 1794. Contemp. hcalf. Gilt spine, titlelabel with gilt lettering. A paperlabel pasted on upper part of spine. Stamps on title-page. (10),XXX,(8),240,(2) pp. and 23 folded engraved plates. Scattered brownspots. Klaus Jordan, 2792.