Newton, Sir Isaac
£21,250
Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: 26 May 2010 at 12:00 BST
Description
Opticks: or, a treatise of the reflexions, refractions, inflexions and colours of light. Also two treatises of the species and magnitude of curvilinear figures. London: printed for Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford, 1704. First edition, 4to (231 x 179mm.), [4], 144, 211, [1], 19 engraved plates, 2 folding, title printed in red and black, late19th century or early twentieth century calf gilt, black label, Northern Light Board gilt stamp at head of spine, some light spotting, 10 plates trimmed touching image or plate numeral, very slightly rubbed at foot of spine
Footnote
Note: Babson 132; BMC; Ptg & the Mind of Man, 172; Gray 174
First edition of Newton's fundamental experiments on the color spectrum. This classic work also explains such optical phenomena as the rainbow, "Newton's rings", and the double refraction of the Icelandic spar. Newton opens his study with the sentence: "My design in this book is not to explain properties of light by hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by reason and experiments." Because of Newton's reliance on scientific method, Opticks remained for over a century a work of great authority.
The two Treatises of the species and magnitude of curvilinear figures included at the end of the text-Newton's first printed mathematical papers-were intended to assert his priority over Leibniz in the discovery of the calculus.