Name: Auction: Lenglet du Fresnoy, Pierre Nicolas Geographia antiqua et nova
Brand: Lyon & Turnbull
Price: 300 GBP
Availability: InStock

James Stirling, one of the foremost mathematicians of eighteenth-century Europe and a protégé of Sir Isaac Newton, played a pivotal role in the Newtonian revolution in mathematics. Renowned for his contributions to infinitesimal calculus and infinite series, he gives his name to two major discoveries in Stirling’s formula and the Stirling numbers. &nbsp;Stirling’s principal work, the Methodus Differentialis&nbsp;(1730), is present in the library in three remarkable forms: his holograph manuscript, his personally corrected first edition, and a first edition in English with autograph letters from the translator. His notebooks, covering subjects from infinite series to the figure of the earth and ancient weights and measures, are complemented by a selection of landmark works by his contemporaries, including a large-paper copy of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, a first edition of Newton’s Analysis&nbsp;Per Quantitatum&nbsp;series, fluxiones, ac differentias, and a first edition of Colin Maclaurin’s Treatise on Fluxions&nbsp;(to which Stirling contributed), alongside presentation copies of works by Brook Taylor, Abraham de Moivre and Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. The library also contains a spectacular collection of letters to Stirling from peers including Leonhard Euler, Nicolaus Bernoulli, and Gabriel Cramer. A selection of scientific instruments, believed to have been used by Stirling, completes this extraordinary collection.Buyer's Guide:&nbsp;

Cathy Tait | Head of Books & Manuscripts | Lyon & Turnbull Auctioneers

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The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician Auction

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or a System of Antient and Modern Geography … designed for the Use of Schools, and of Gentlemen, who make the Antient Writers their Delight or Study. Translated from the French … with Great Additions and Improvements, from Ptolemy, Strabo Cellarius, etc. London: for John and Paul Knapton, 1742. 4to, contemporary sprinkled calf, vi [6] 157 [38] pp., 33 engraved folding maps by R. W. Seale after Cellarius, binding slightly rubbed, superficial splits to head and foot of front joint

Geographia antiqua et nova

Lenglet du Fresnoy, Pierre Nicolas

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Lenglet du Fresnoy, Pierre Nicolas

Geographia antiqua et nova

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