Opticks by Isaac Newton, First Edition (9 results)

Paperback. Condition: Good-. First Edition. 8vo. frontcover missing back cover and ffep loose, no spine, plastic name label to ffep constable and co sticker to title page, Book.

Condition: Very good. - Octavo, cloth in a dust wrapper. The spine & extremities of the dust jacket are darkened and its front panel is creased with a small, light stain & with a short tear to the panel's top edge. The jacket spine is chipped with a tear near the head. xi & 177 & [1] pages. There are tiny brown marks to the fore-edge & the front margins of 4 pages. Very good in a good dust wrapper. First edition.History of Ideas Series No. 2.The book "traces the growing interest in Newton's prismatic discoveries and the 'scientific' poets' attempt to express in verse his theories on the nature of light." Among the poets considered are Mark Akenside, James Thompson and Edward Young.

No Binding. Condition: New. 1st Edition. New digital facsimile (iin electronic PDF format on CD-ROM disc) of the 1704 edition of this groundbreaking scientific treastise by Isaac Newton. The profundity and far-ranging implications of Newton's discoveries continue to reveal themselves under close study. Here he magisterially surveys optical phenomena, including the fundamental principle that white light is compounded from colored, rather than the converse. This Octavo Edition contains detailed digital images (may be magnified at up to 300% of original size) as well as searchable live text and a new introduction and essay by Nicholas Humez and detailed bibliographical information. This high-resolution version presents this work in the most detailed and accurate reproduction ever.

Holographic Hardcover. Condition: NEW. 1st edition. There is no art without perception of colors and light. NEW, in publisher's. Kronecker Wallis, 2019 500 pages, 8.5: x 6" x 1.25" (148 x 210 mm} (Din-A5). Holographic film cover Engravings in stamping Spine lined in cloth Gradient colored interior pages We have set out to create a unique book, following the philosophy of our previous books. A book able to capture the attention not only of scientists excited about the science of Newton, but also artists or designers. We have created a book where color is the protagonist. From a cover that reflects the light to show us the tones that Newton described, to interiors tinted by his rainbow. The cover is made with a reflective paper that makes it 'interactive'. As you move it - the light angles change and colors are shown. Just as Newton did with the sunlight through the prisms. The inner pages are also colored, making gradient color changes throughout the book and differentiating the sections through different colors. Turning the book into an explosion of color, with an elegant layout. Each chapter is defined by a new color - following a color gradient. Once you are within that chapter, the color remains along the interior spine. This pattern repeats until the end of the book. This book is unique, made almost by hand. A beautiful book to collect, touch, browse or offer as a gift. Transmitting the scientific culture that Newton gave us. (Kronecker Wallis).

The Third Edition, Corrected. c. 18 x 12 cm. Title Page, (6) [Advertisement I & II], 382 pages, followed by 12 folding Plates. Collation: A1-A4, B1 to Bb7. One page (Q3, 229/230) missing. Contemporary half calf over marbled paper boards. Original binding with new matching marbled papers on boards. Good condition. Binding rubbed and bumped. Marbled papers replaced with new ones in 2025. Recased, using the original board and spine. Sound binding. Edges age darkened. Top edge worn with some paper losses. Age darkened throughout. Minor signs of old bookworm. Old signatures on title page and verso of title page. Some damp staining to the top edge. Some losses to the 12 Plates present. Text block remains fully readable. Plates heavily worn, with some losses.See images. Sir Isaac Newton (1643 - 1727) was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, achieved the first great unification in physics and established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for formulating infinitesimal calculus, though he developed calculus years before Leibniz. Newton contributed to and refined the scientific method, and his work is considered the most influential in bringing forth modern science. Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light is a collection of three books that was published in English in 1704. The treatise analyses the fundamental nature of light by means of the refraction of light with prisms and lenses, the diffraction of light by closely spaced sheets of glass, and the behaviour of colour mixtures with spectral lights or pigment powders. Opticks was Newton's second major work on physical science, and it is considered one of the three major works on optics during the Scientific Revolution (alongside Johannes Kepler's Astronomiae Pars Optica and Christiaan Huygens' Treatise on Light). The publication of Opticks represented a major contribution to science, different from but in some ways rivalling the Principia, yet Isaac Newton's name did not appear on the cover page of the first edition. Opticks is largely a record of experiments, and the deductions made from them, covering a wide range of topics in what was later to be known as physical optics. That is, this work is not a geometric discussion of catoptrics or dioptrics, the traditional subjects of reflection of light by mirrors of different shapes and the exploration of how light is "bent" as it passes from one medium, such as air, into another, such as water or glass. Rather, the Opticks is a study of the nature of light and colour and the various phenomena of diffraction, which Newton called the "inflexion" of light. Newton sets forth in full his experiments, first reported to the Royal Society of London in 1672, on dispersion, or the separation of light into a spectrum of its component colours. He demonstrates how the appearance of colour arises from selective absorption, reflection, or transmission of the various component parts of the incident light. Sprache: english.

4to, pp.[iv], 144, '211' [recte213], [1 (errata)], with 19 folding copper-engraved plates; title printed in red and black; occasional light foxing, last leaf with small marginal loss to lower outer corner, one plate stained at head, else a fine copy; bound in contemporary Cambridge-panelled calf, gilt green morocco lettering-piece to spine, edges speckled red; skilfully recornered and rebacked to style, extremities slightly rubbed; housed in a cloth box with gilt morocco lettering-piece to spine; small ink stamp 'R.H.Inglis' to title verso, modern bookplate of Jean Michel Cantacuzène to front pastedown.First edition of Newton's Opticks, 'which did for light what his Principia had done for gravitation, namely, placed it on a scientific basis', and 'expounds Newton's corpuscular or emission theory of light, and first contains his important optical discoveries in a collected form' (Babson), also discussing rainbows and Newton's Rings. The work is unusual in being issued almost entirely in English rather than Latin, and in contrast with his Principia mathematica reads more as a record of experiments and the conclusions drawn from them. Newton specifies in his Advertisement that 'I have here Published what I think proper to come abroad, wishing that it may not be Translated into another Language without my Consent'; 'My design in this book is not to explain the Properties of Light by Hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by Reason and Experiments' (p.1). Newton explains the composition of colours, using prismatic experiments; discusses rainbows and the effect of light upon colour; and also calculates the varying wavelengths of different colours. The work concludes with a set of 'Queries', startling speculations on the nature of matter which had a profound influence on eighteenth-century and later thought. The two final mathematical tracts on curvilinear figures in Latin, published here for the first time, expressly assert Newton's priority over Leibniz in his third major contribution to science, the invention of calculus. Provenance: 1. Ink stamp of 'R.H. Inglis', likely the Conservative politician Sir Robert Harry Inglis (17861855), MP for Dundalk, Ripon, and Oxford University. 2. Christie's, London, 20 November 1992, lot 198, to Jean Michel Cantacuzène. Babson 132; PMM 172; Wallis 174. For a discussion of the development of Newton's optical work, see Shapiro, 'The evolving structure of Newton's theory of white light and color', in Isis 71 (1980), pp.21135. Language: English.

hardcover. Condition: very good(+). First. 4 parts in 1 volume. Title page printed in red & black within a double-ruled border. Illustrated with 19 folding copperplate engravings.[4], 144, 211, [1] pages. (In the second sequence, p. 120 is marked 112, and there are blank pages between 137-8 and 138-9). Thick 4to, contemporary blind-tooled paneled calf, well-worn and now expertly re-backed in sympathetic leather (contemporary signatures on title dated 1704, and rear endpaper; last several pages have marginal dampstains, otherwise a remarkably clean crisp copy). London: Smith & Walford, Printers to the Royal Society, 1704. First edition, first issue - with the author not named on title page. "Newton's Opticks expounds his corpuscular theory of light and summarizes his experiments concerning light and colour. It also prints two important mathematical treatises (omitted in later editions) describing his invention of the fluxional calculus, the grounds for his claim of priority over Leibniz. Newton arrived at most of his unconventional ideas on colour by about 1668, and Opticks was largely complete by 1692. However, when he first partially expressed his theories in public, in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, especially on the continent. As a result, Newton delayed the publication of Opticks until his most vociferous critics - especially Robert Hooke - were dead. Unusually for Newton, and in what was probably a further defensive move, the work was first published in English rather than Latin, becoming a major contribution to the development of vernacular scientific literature. By about 1715, Opticks established itself as a model for interweaving theory with quantitative experimentation. Newton's aim was not to "explain the properties of light by hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by reason and experiments" (p. 1). The great achievement of the work was to show that colour was a mathematically definable property." The work contains: The First Book of Opticks, The Second Book of Opticks, The Thrid Book of Opticks (Tertii Ordinis: Enumeratio Linearum), Tractatus de Quadratura Curvarum. The main work is in English, the 2 treatises (pages 138-211) are in Latin. Babson 132; Gray 174; Horblit 79b; PMM 172; Norman 1588; Dibner 148; Wallis 174.

Condition: Very Good. First Edition. First edition, first issue of this foundational work in the field of optics, in which Isaac Newton explores the nature of light and color, presenting his experiments and theories on how light behaves. Title printed in red and black, within a double-rule border and without author's name. Bound in contemporary paneled calf boards sympathetically rebacked; with 19 engraved folding plates. Very Good. Soiling to textblock and endsheets, bookplate of Irish naturalist John Vandeleur Stewart affixed to the front pastedown, ownership signature to title page. Amateur repair to gutter at title page. Numerous pencil notations throughout, though mostly confined to the margins or blank areas. Plate 5 is torn at the fold, plate 6 with corner loss affecting the image, several shaved. Second book with page 120 misnumbered as 112. A lovely copy of Newton's second major book on physical science, considered one of the Scientific Revolution's three major works on optics. It overturned centuries of thinking attributed to Aristotle or Theophrastus and accepted by scholars in Newton's time, that "pure" light (such as the light attributed to the Sun) is fundamentally white or colorless, and is altered into color by mixture with darkness caused by interactions with matter. Here Newton shows the opposite was true: light is composed of different spectral hues (he describes seven red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet), and all colors, including white, are formed by various mixtures of these hues. He demonstrates that color arises from a physical property of light each hue is refracted at a characteristic angle by a prism or lens but he clearly states that color is a sensation within the mind and not an inherent property of material objects or of light itself. Unlike his earlier work, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which took a more deductive approach, Opticks is largely experimental and inductive. Newton's study includes detailed descriptions of his experiments with prisms and lenses, leading to the conclusion that white light is composed of a spectrum of colors. The work also delves into the phenomena of diffraction and interference, which were crucial to the development of wave theory in later years. The work is notable for containing Newton's first mathematical papers in print, and for giving the first full explanation of the rainbow, complete with related diagrams. Like Galileo, Newton decided to publish this text in his native English rather than Latin, the language of scholarship; an enlarged Latin edition would be published two years later.

First edition. THE EARLIEST KNOWN PRESENTATION COPY OF NEWTON'S OPTICKS. First edition, first issue, and a superlative copy, presented by Newton to his close friend and collaborator Nicolas Fatio de Duillier, with an inscription recording the gift in Fatio's hand and with his ink and pencil annotations in the text. This is the earliest of the six known presentation copies of the Opticks, none of which is inscribed in Newton's hand the presentation inscription in this copy is dated five days earlier than that in the copy Newton presented to the Royal Society, of which he was then President. Only one other author's presentation copy of Opticks has sold at auction, that copy presented to Edmond Halley (lot 918, Robert S. Pirie sale, Sotheby's New York, December 4, 2015, $1,330,000). Of Newton's three greatest contributions to science his theory of gravity, his theories of light and colour, and the invention of calculus the first was published for the first time in the Principia (1687), and the other two in the present work. "Newton's Opticks did for light what his Principia had done for gravitation, namely, placed it on a scientific basis" (Babson, p. 66)."One of the supreme productions of the human mind" (Andrade), the Opticks "summarized Newton's discoveries and theories concerning light and color: the spectrum of the sunlight, the degrees of refraction associated with different colors, the color circle (the first in the history of color theory), the invention of the reflecting telescope, the first workable theory of the rainbow, and experiments on what would later be called 'interference effects' in conjunction with Newton's rings. His discovery of periodicity in Newton's rings led Newton to postulate that periodicity was a fundamental property either of light waves or of waves associated with light. Nevertheless, Newton preferred the corpuscular theory of light, with which he is usually associated, because of its explanatory value for certain optical phenomena and because it allowed him to link the action of gross bodies with the action of light" (Norman). "All previous philosophers and mathematicians had been sure that white light is pure and simple, regarding colors as modifications or qualifications of the white. Newton showed that the opposite is true Natural white light, far from being simple, is a compound of many pure elementary colors which can be separated and recombined at will" (PMM). "Newton's Opticks dominated the science of optics for over a century the experimental approach adopted in the Opticks was lauded and widely followed in optical science and served as a model for other experimental sciences" (Shapiro, p. 166). The two appended tracts, Tractatus de quadratura curvarum and Enumeratio linearum tertii ordinis, are the first of Newton's purely mathematical works to be published. De quadratura is Newton's first publication of his method of fluxions, or calculus, which he developed in terms of 'prime and ultimate ratios', an early version of the theory of limits; it includes the first published statement of the general binomial theorem and of 'Taylor's theorem' on series expansions. Fatio de Duillier, the recipient of this copy of the Opticks, was an accomplished mathematician in his own right. After working in the Netherlands, where he befriended Christiaan Huygens, he came to England in 1687, became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1688, and made the acquaintance of Newton. Fatio became the leading intermediary between Newton and Huygens; the exchanges between these two great scientists did much to shape and modify Newton's theories on optics and other matters. In the 1690s, as Newton's closest confidant, Fatio became the most likely person to oversee a revised edition of the Principia, discussing corrections with Newton and exchanging letters. Fatio championed Newton against his Continental rivals in his Lineae brevissimi descensus investigatio geometrica duplex (1699), the work that ignited the priority dispute with Leibniz over the invention of calculus. The present volume is one of only four books known to survive from Fatio's library. With the presentation, the close association of author and recipient, the annotations, and the unsophisticated condition of such an important work, this volume could be a centrepiece of even the finest scientific library. Provenance: Inscribed at the top of the front pastedown in Fatio's hand: "Ex Dono Autoris Clarissimi: Londini, Februarii undecimo, 1703/4. Nicolaus Facius." Fatio also used the Latin form of his name in an inscription recording presentation by Newton in his copy of the third edition of the Principia (Bodleian Library, Oxford, shelfmark 4° Z. 24 Art.); passed on Fatio's death to Corfield Clare (d. 1790), rector of Madresfield and of Alvechurch, with whom Fatio lodged; acquired from Clare by James Johnstone (c. 1730-1802), physician and antiquary (bookplate on front paste-down); by descent to John Johnstone (1768-1836), physician in Worcester from 1793 (note of its acquisition by his father on the front free endpaper); bookseller's pencil notes including a price of £250, dating from before 1971 when the book was acquired by its previous owner. Newton's studies of light and optics began very early, possibly even before 1665, but were interrupted by the plague, and only resumed two years later. Appointed in 1669 to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge, he was obliged by the statutes of the post to lecture and to deposit his lectures in the University Library. For the period 1670-1672 Newton lectured on optics and deposited the lectures in October 1674. Although he considered publishing the lectures together with an early tract on calculus, De methodus fluxionum, neither was published until after his death. Newton's optical work first came to the attention of the Royal Society when Newton exhibited there a telescope he had made. He was elected a fellow shortly thereafter, on 11 January 1672, and responded by offer.