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[Babbage, Charles] "An Account of Euler's Method of Solving a Problem, relative to the Move of the Knight at the Game of Chess, from a Correspondent", in "The Quarterly Journal of Science and the Arts", edited at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, published by John Murray for the Royal Institution, London, 1817; volume 3, No. V, article V, pp.72-77; the Babbage illustrated with an engraved plate; contained in the volume of xxiii, 435pp, with 4 plates (two folding). [++] Modern library cloth, nicely done, with reinforced hinges this is a very sturdy and workable copy. Provenance: Norwich (England) Public Library, with their bookplate and small rubber stamp on the rear of the plates. There is some foxing and some very old dampstaining, particularly to the plate (see pic). That said, this is very tight and crisp, a nice copy, overall [++] The "Correspondent" here is Mr. Babbage himself, with the authorship established at least by the time of his "Passages from the Life of a Philosopher" if not before. The Knight's Tour puzzle--in which a knight is moved around a chessboard (8x8 grid, though smaller and much larger have been used) so that every square is touched only once--is ancient, with the host of the famous 18th century mathematical revelers positioning the problem in the dim past, with Lucas in 1882 and then Kraitchik in 1927 fixing it more resolutely in India over 2000 years ago.+++OTHER CONTRIBUTORS to the volume (including Babbage, Faraday, Wedgwood, Davy, and others): Babbage, Charles. "Note Respecting Elimination", pp 355-358. "An Enquiry into the Origin of our Notion of Distance, Drawn up from Notes left by the late Thomas Wedgwood"; "A Descriptive Account of Mr. Thompson's Laboratory at Cheltenham, for the Preparation of the Cheltenham Salts; with a Chemical Analysis of the Waters whence they are produced, by W. T. Brande"; "Some Experiments and Observations on a new Acid Substance," by Michael Faraday; "Journal of a Voyage up the River Missouri, performed in 1811", by H. B. Brackenbridge, Esq. author of "Views in Louisiana"." "An Account of the Life and Writings of Baron Guyton de Morveau, F. R. S. Member of the Institute of France, &c.&c." by A. B. Granville, (47pp!); "An Account of some Experiments on the Escape of Gasses through Capillary Tubes," by Mr. Faraday; "On the Cause of the Diminution of the Temperature of the Sea on approaching Land, or in passing over Banks in the Ocean" by Sir H. Davy. Notes: (1) See the "collected works" section in Babbage's Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (1864) where he outs himself as the author. (2) Just as a sample the folks working on this puzzle in the 18th c included d'Alembert and Diderot in the Encyclopedie; Jacques Ozanam in Recreations Mathematiques et Physiques; d'Ortous de Mairan, Abraham de Moivre, Pierre Rémond de Montmort; Jean Etienne Montucla, Leonhard Euler, and many others.
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