Gems from Physics History : Science book auction at Christie’s.
The remarkable collection of a retired physician and amateur astronomer, Richard Green of Long Island, which is offered for sale by Christie’s, contains some of the greatest physics books ever written.
Dr. Green’s library includes works by Galileo, Copernicus, Newton,Gauss, Kepler, and Einstein.
One lot includes 130 reprints from Albert Einstein’s collection of his scientific papers, including his first one on relativity.
Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica explained the universal laws of gravitation and motion for the first time.
Nicolaus Copernicus’s book “De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium” (”On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres”). In it, the Polish astronomer laid out his theory that the Earth and other planets go around the Sun, contravening a millennium of church dogma that the Earth was the center of the universe.
Estimate for the Copernicus book: about $1M.
BERNOULLI, Jacob (1654-1703). Ars conjectandi, opus posthumum. Accedit tractatus de seriebus infinitis, et epistola gallicè scripta de ludo pilae reticularis. Edited by Nicolaus I. Bernoulli (1687-1759). Basel: Thurneisen Brothers, 1713.
CURIE, Marie Sklodowksa (1867-1934). Recherches sur les substance radioactives. Thèse présentée a la Faculté des Sciences de Paris. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1904. (no image)
DOPPLER, Johann Christian (1803-1853). “Ueber das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne und einiger anderer Gestirne des Himmels”. Offprint from: Abhandlungen der k. böhm. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 5th series, vol. 2 (1842). Prague: Borrosch & Andrä, 1842.
FOUCAULT, Léon (1819-1868). “Démonstration physique du movement de rotation de la terre au moyen du pendule.” In: Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l’Académie des Sciences. Volume 32, Number 5. Paris: Bachelier, 3 February 1851. (no image)
FRANKLIN, Benjamin. Experiments and Observations on Electricity, made at Philadelphia in America … to which are added, Letters and Papers on Philosophical Subjects. London: for David Henry and sold by Francis Newbery, 1769
GALILEI, Galileo. Sidereus nuncius magna, longeque admirabilia spectacula pandens. Venice: Tommaso Baglioni, 1610.
GAUSS, Carl Friedrich (1777-1855). Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectionibus conicis solem ambientium. Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes and I.H. Besser, 1809.
KEPLER, Johannes. Astronomia nova \KAITIOLOGHTOS\k, seu physica coelestis, tradita commentariis de motibus stellae martis, ex observationibus G. V. Tychonis Brahe. [Heidelberg: E. Vögelin,] 1609.
MAXWELL, James Clerk. A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1873.
WRIGHT, Wilbur (1867-1912). Some Aeronautical Experiments. Offprint from: Journal of the Western Society of Engineers 6 (December, 1901). [Chicago, 1901].
The auction catalog is like taking a walk through the development of scientific thought; not just in physics but in other fields as well.
June 19th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
[...] I wrote about the Science book auction a few days ago. [...]