Search Results: Authors starting with B from Atticus Rare Books

Paris: Mallet-Bachelier, 1855. 1st Edition. Full volume. RARE FIRST PRINTING OF BABBAGE'S REPORT ON SCHEUTZ'S DIFFERENCE CALCULATOR. Babbage thought so highly of Scheutz's engine that in an effort to promote [it], presented a talk on it before the Academie des Sciences. In the talk, Babbage describes the machine's construction and functions using his own system of mechanical notation. His speech was published in the volume offered here the Academie's Comptes rendus" (Hook & Norman Origins of Cyberspace, No. 73). Georg Scheutz [Scheuts] and his son Edvard based their calculator on Babbage's own designs. "After reading a description of the Difference Engine (by Babbage), they designed and built their own version. This machine was smaller and lighter than the engine conceived by Babbage. They used gears and levers that would have been suitable for the mechanism of a clock. In contrast, Babbage used technology that would have been appropriate for a steam engine. Babbage's engine, if completed, would… Read More

FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF THE INVENTION OF THE DOUBLE FOCUSING SPECTROMETER. In 1936, Kenneth Bainbridge and Edward Jordan built a double focusing spectrometer at Harvard University. In 1919 Aston developed the first really good mass spectrograph, an instrument for measuring the masses of isotopes; his apparatus gave accuracies of one part in 1000. The mass spectrograph Bainbridge and Jordan developed was capable of mass determination of 1 in 30,000 parts. The earlier spectrographs were designed either to focus ions having the same velocity or moving in the same direction to one point (Mittal, Introduction to Nuclear, 29). In the instrument Bainbridge and Jordan built, greater accuracy was possible because "all the ions having same e/M value are focused at the same point irrespective of the direction or velocity" (ibid). ALSO INCLUDED: H.A. Bethe "An Attempt to Calculate the Number of Energy Levels of a Heavy Nucleus", pp. 332-342. Bethe's paper presents the first derivation of the level… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1970. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF A PAPER BY BALLENTINE WHICH WOULD BECOME THE BASIS FOR THE STATISTICAL OR ENSEMBLE INTERPRETATION OF QUANTUM MECHANICS, A THEORY EINSTEIN HAD EARLIER "INSISTED WAS THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE INTERPRETATION OF THE QUANTUM THEORY" (Reed, Deltete, Foundations of Physics 20, 1990, 943). Einstein argued "that this way of understanding the quantum formalism eliminated all the problems associated with interpreting the theory as a complete description of individual systems. But he never developed his ensemble interpretation in any detail or explained how it was supposed to resolve the difficulties with the individual interpretation" (Reed, Deltete, Foundations of Physics 20, 1990, 943). That development, detailing and explanation is what Ballentine does in this paper. "The statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics takes Max Born's statistical interpretation of Schrodinger's wave equations to its logical conclusion… Read More

Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1845. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION of the first experimental verification of the Doppler effect with sound waves. For this paper, "acoustic tests on the Dutch railway plus remarks on the theory of Professor Doppler," "Buys" Ballot, a Dutch chemist and meteorologist, put a group of musicians on a train and took up his position on a station platform. He asked the train engineer to rush the train past him as fast as he could while the musicians played and held a constant note, "g". Both Ballot and a set of observers selected for their sensitivity to pitch were able to detect the Doppler shift (as a change in pitch) as the train passed. Thus the pitch varied just as Doppler had predicted. CONDITION & DETAILS: Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth. 8vo. (8 x 5 inches; 200mm x 125mm); Handsomely rebound in three-quarter calf over marbled paper boards; four raised bands at the spine; gilt-lettered and tooled. Very tightly bound. Ex-libris with stamp on title page and no exterior… Read More

Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1885. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING OF THE SEMINAL 1885 DISCOVERY OF THE BALMER FORMULA: A MATHEMATICAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE FREQUENCIES OF ATOMIC SPECTRAL LINES. "Balmer had found a simple but very accurate formula... to compute the frequencies (and wavelengths) of the light for the spectral lines emitted by atomic hydrogen" (Brandt, Harvest of a Century, 93). "As soon as I saw Balmer's formula, the whole thing was immediately clear to me" Bohr told Leon Rosenfeld in an interview. (Heilbron, Historical studies in the theory of atomic structure, p. 265). In atomic physics, the spectral line emissions of the hydrogen atom are known as the Balmer series or lines. The series is calculated using the Balmer formula, the empirical equation discovered by Balmer and first stated in this paper. Balmer's discovery was very influential in Bohr's famous and groundbreaking discovery and description of his model of atomic structure published in 1913. In the… Read More

American Institute of Physics, 1957. 1st Edition. Bound full volume. FIRST EDITIONS OF 3 IMPORTANT PAPERS: (1) Bardeen, Cooper, & Schrieffer first announced their ‘BCS theory of superconductivity' in a letter included in this volume; the letter presents many of their key ideas. Their theory describes superconductivity as a microscopic effect caused by a quantum mechanical "condensation" of pairs of electrons into a boson-like state. In 1972 they received the Nobel Prize for their theory. (2 and 3) Gell-Mann and Brueckner show that random phase approximation is derivable from summing a series of Feynman diagrams. Though debated upon publication, this work proved " a seminal result... [and] is often considered to be the first major accomplishment of modern quantum many-particle theory and has been an inspiration for the entire field" (Wikipedia). BARDEEN, COOPER, SCHRIEFFER: The ‘BCS theory of superconductivity' provided the first theoretical framework that "explained the known phenomena of… Read More

Berlin: Julius Springer, 1936. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL PRINTED WRAPS OF BARGMANN'S RELATION OF FOCK'S "GLOBAL METHOD" OF TREATMENT FOR THE HYDROGEN ATOM TO THE "INFINITESIMAL METHOD" OF PAULI (Chattargi, The Theory of Auger Transitions, 36; Avery, Applications in Quantum Theory, xii). Note that we offer the Fock paper separately. A German-American theoretical physicist and mathematician, Valentine ‘Valya' Bargmann worked as an assistant to Albert Einstein at Princeton from 1937-1946. In this paper, Bargmann shows "that a group theoretical interpretation of the matrix equations that Pauli used as a basis of his treatment of the hydrogen atom leads to the method recently developed by Fock. The separation of the Schrödinger equation in parabolic coordinates will be introduced in this connection" (Bargmann, 1936, 576). "In a very interesting paper, Fock reduces the Schrödinger equation of the hydrogen atom in momentum space to an integral equation in the spherical harmonics in four… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1975. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF A LENGTHLY SUPPLEMENT TO THE REVIEWS OF MODERN PHYSICS. "The authors have a particularly broad interpretation of ‘Disordered Systems'", one encompassing the exploration of energy localization in discrete nonlinear lattices, both classical and quantum mechanical (Barker & Sievers, i, 1975). Their review is self-contained and provides an introduction to the theoretical methods and a tabulation of known experimental results" (ibid). Note that the attached photos include the table-of-contents. According to Barker and Sievers's abstract to the entire, 180 page supplement, "Since approximately 1950 an increasing portion of experimental solid state physics research has been concerned with studying defects in crystals. This trend might appear to be a rather belated recognition that most of the materials we come into contact with have a random structure. In fact the theoretical understanding and controlled… Read More

London: Macmillan Limited, 1965. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF A "CLASSIC" PAPER ON THE PROBLEM OF CAPITAL BUDGETING, THE 1965 BAUMOL-QUANDT MODEL. Project selection is a major problem in managerial decision making. Capital budgeting problems determine which project to fund given constraints on available capital. This much studied paper presents the Baumol-Quandt Model [also known as the Baumol and Quandt Problem]; in it Baumol and Quandt apply tools of mathematical programming to the topic of capital budgeting and present their approach for making project selections to maximize value. Note that we separately offer a related paper that came ten years earlier, the Lorie-Savage Problem paper ("Three Problems in Capital Rationing" in The Journal of Business 28, 8, October 1955, pp. 229-240). Lorie and Savage use integer programming (Lagrangian methods in discrete optimization approach) to introduce the topic of capital budgeting and present their approach for making project… Read More

1954. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS OF TWO PAPERS BY BELLMAN MARKING THE BIRTH OF DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING. "These are the seminal papers by Bellman on Dynamic Programming. The first is a 141-page report on dynamic programming and the second is a speech on the theory underlying it. Richard E. Bellman's invention of dynamic programming in 1953 (published in these two papers) was a major breakthrough in the theory of multistage decision processes - a breakthrough which set the stage for the application of functional equation techniques in a wide spectrum of fields extending far beyond the problem-areas which provided the initial motivation for his ideas. This work marked the beginning of a new era in the analysis and optimization of large-scale systems and opened a way for the application of sophisticated computer-oriented techniques in a wide variety of problem-areas ranging from the design of guidance systems for space vehicles to pest control and network optimization" (Richard Bellman… Read More

New York: American Telephone and Telegraph Co, 1941. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION (full volume) OF A PAPER CITED BY CLAUDE SHANNON "AS ONE OF HIS SOURCES OF THE SAMPLING THEOREM" (Butzera, Multiplex signal transmission and the development of sampling techniques" Applicable Analysis, January 2008, 1437). One year after publication of his seminal 1948 paper - a proof of his sampling theorem -- Shannon wrote that Bennett [in the paper offered here] had established "a result similar to Theorem 1 [his own sampling theorem]" (C.E. Shannon, Proc. IRE 37, 1949, pp. 10-21). Notably, Shannon's paper - by any measure seminal - only cited ten other papers, two of them his own. Bennett's paper, in other words, was one of only eight included. Note that we also offer this item in its original paper wrappers. "In the field of digital signal processing, the sampling theorem is a fundamental bridge between continuous-time signals and discrete-time signals. It establishes a sufficient condition for a sample rate that… Read More

Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard Ltd, 1952. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF "THE FIRST PAPER PUBLISHED IN A SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL ON THE APPLICATION OF AN ELECTRONIC COMPUTER TO COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY" AND CRYSTAL-STRUCTURE INVESTIGATION (Christies, Origin of Cyberspace Auction, 2005, 139). A brief summary was published in the Manchester Conference Proceedings, but this paper was intended for X-ray crystallographers and is far more thorough. Working together at the Cavendish Laboratory, the English biochemists John Bennett and John Kendrew "wrote the first program for three-dimensional Fourier calculations" which Kendrew then ran on the an early British computer, EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) "in order to solve the structure of the protein myoglobin" (ibid). "During the 1940s the limitation of human calculation ability was reached in solving the structures of molecules with about 10 distinct atoms. The production of electron density maps for structure analysis… Read More

New York: American Telephone and Telegraph Co, 1941. 1st Edition. IN ORIGINAL PAPER WRAPS, the FIRST EDITION OF A PAPER CITED BY CLAUDE SHANNON "AS ONE OF HIS SOURCES OF THE SAMPLING THEOREM" (Butzera, Multiplex signal transmission and the development of sampling techniques" Applicable Analysis, January 2008, 1437). One year after publication of his seminal 1948 paper - a proof of his sampling theorem -- Shannon wrote that Bennett [in the paper offered here] had established "a result similar to Theorem 1 [his own sampling theorem]" (C.E. Shannon, Proc. IRE 37, 1949, pp. 10-21). Notably, Shannon's paper - by any measure seminal - only cited ten other papers, two of them his own. Bennett's paper, in other words, was one of only eight to make the cut. Note that we also offer this paper in its bound form. "In the field of digital signal processing, the sampling theorem is a fundamental bridge between continuous-time signals and discrete-time signals. It establishes a sufficient condition for a sample… Read More

San Francisco: Harper and Brothers, 1999. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, 1st PRINTING SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, TIM BERNERS-LEE, inventor of the World Wide Web, the first web browser, as well as the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the Web to scale. In 1989, while working at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), Berners-Lee proposed the concept of the World Wide Web as a way to facilitate the sharing of information among researchers. He published a paper entitled Information Management: A Proposal. In the paper, Berner's Lee proposed a linked system of information - a universal one - that would employ differing technologies and concepts. The most fundamental aspect of his proposition was the ability to link the connections between information. His proposition and the work it engendered laid the foundation for the development of the modern internet and transformed the way information is accessed and shared globally. His book, Weaving the Web provides insights into the… Read More

New York: American Physical Society, 1957. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF THE BERNSTEIN-GREENE-KRUSKAL (BGK) MODE, AMONG THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS IN PLASMA PHYSICS. Also included: D. L. Dexter's "Possibility of Luminescent Quantum Yields Greater than Unity" (pp. 630-634). First appearance of the idea of quantum cutting (also known as photon cascade emission or quantum cascade emission). The term "describes the phenomenon where the energy of one absorbed photon is transformed into two or more emitted photons" (Fan, JPC, 116, 21, 2012, 11652). "In plasma physics, the nonlinear wave-particle interactions between particles and waves can give rise to phase-space holes', which are large-amplitude solitary potential structures with trapped-particle populations. First indications of the possibility of such strange entities were obtained by Bernstein et al. [in this paper], who found that potential structures of arbitrarily large amplitude could be constructed in a plasma if… Read More

New York: American Physical Society, 1990. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF HANS BETHE ON SUPERNOVA MECHANISMS, THE PHYSICS OF THE COLLAPSE, NEUTRINO EMISSION, THE OUTWARD SHOCK & SN 1987A. Also included is a classic review article on generalized coherent states by Zhang, et al. Hans Albrecht Bethe was a German-American  physicist who made important contributions to astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics and solid-state physics and won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis, specifically, "for his contributions to the theory of nuclear reactions, especially his discoveries concerning the energy production in stars" (Nobel Prize Committee). The 1990 Bethe paper offered here is an important and "thorough discussion of the physics of core collapse, neutrino trapping and neutron star convection" (Wheeler, Observations and Theory of Supernovae, 9). As Bethe states, "Supernovae of Type II occur at the end of the evolution of massive… Read More

Lancaster: American Institute of Physics, 1951. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF THE BETHE-SALPETER EQUATION, A PARTICULARLY GROUNDBREAKING QUANTUM FIELD THEORETICAL TOOL THAT CAN BE APPLIED IN ANY QUANTUM FIELD THEORY & MOST AREAS OF THEORETICAL PHYSICS. The Bethe-Salpeter equation describes the "bound states between two or more elementary particles on a fully covariant relativistic footing. The work was stimulated in part by two papers by Tamm and Dancoff, but then mainly by a series of seminal papers by Feynman and by Dyson on quantum electrodynamics, which started in 1949" (Salpeter, Scholarpedia, 3 (11), 2008, p. 7483). The equation itself is in fact a direct application of the Feynman rules. Earlier in 1951, the authors had written a paper announcing the concept of the Bethe-Salpeter equation, but that paper was without either derivations or calculations. The paper offered here puts forth the derivations and calculations specific to the theory and is thus considered the first… Read More

London: Macmillan, 1934. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS of the first calculation of what is now called the 'neutrino cross section;' more specifically, Bethe and Peierl's paper presents the first calculation of a measure of the probability of a collision. Together, they used general principles to relate the chance of beta decay to the probability of a neutrino interacting with matter" (Close, Neutrino). Neutrinos, a product of several nuclear reactions (including nuclear fusion and radioactive decay) are elementary subatomic particles with no electric charge, very little mass and .5 unit of spin. The study of neutrino interaction physics played an important role in ascertaining the validity of the theories of weak interactions and electroweak interaction. All totaled, "the prediction, discovery and understanding of the neutrino would take scientists almost 100 years. It was clear from the start that discovering the neutrino would not be easy. Fermi proposed his theory of beta decay in… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1947. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of "The Electromagnetic Shift of Energy Levels," in which Bethe, considering the Lamb/Retherford discovery of the shift of the 2S-state of hydrogen upward in energy evidenced in "Fine Structure," took up an idea of Hans Kramer's that if one renormalized the mass of the electron ("taking into account its interaction with its own electromagnetic field, then only those parts of the self-energy which are not contained in the mass of the particle would be observable and amenable to experimentation") (Mehra, The Conceptual Completion, 1039). Full volume with many other papers of significance throughout. "The main idea in Bethe's calculation was to use Kramer's renormalization procedure (although in a quantum, rather than a classical context) for the self-energy of the electron in a nonrelativistic consideration of this problem" (ibid). When done, Bethe had "completed the first non-relativistic computation of the shift of… Read More

Berlin: Julius Springer, 1931. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF HANS BETHE'S NOW FAMOUS ANSATZ, "the first time a strongly interacting many-body system has been 'solved exactly'" (Weiss, Reflected Brownian Motion, 1). Bethe's ansatz, or approach, provides exact solutions of certain one-dimensional quantum many-body models. It has been used to solve "genuine interacting quantum man-body systems for which perturbative approaches and mean-field theories often fail. In the case of interacting bosons and fermions, the spatial confinement to one dimension leads to enhanced dynamics and correlations, and ultimately to new quantum phases" (Batchelor, "The Bethe Ansatz after 75 Years" in Physics Today, 2007). The 75th anniversary of Bethe's Ansatz was celebrated for its "profound influence on the field of exactly solved models in statistical mechanics to insights into the subtle nature of quantum many-body effects observed in cold quantum gases" (ibid). Today, Bethe's approach and solution to a quantum… Read More