Search Results: Authors starting with G from Atticus Rare Books

London: Royal Society, 1949. 1st Edition. BOUND FIRST EDITION OF GABOR'S FIRST EXTENSIVE PRESENTATION OF HIS 1971 NOBEL PRIZE WINNING "INVENTION & DEVELOPMENT OF THE HOLOGRAPHIC METHOD" (Nobel Prize). This work includes Gabor's first use of the word ‘hologram' as well as three photographic plates. In 1948 Gabor sent a brief announcement of his new technology to Nature, then calling it an ‘electron interference microscope' (Gabor, Nature, 161, 1948, p. 778). We offer that work separately. In 1947, the Hungarian physicist Dennis Gabor began his first steps toward improving the electron microscope; he wanted to produce "an instrument that could ‘see' individual atoms" (Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Sup., 17, 325). Gabor understood that "despite gradual improvements in the resolving power of electron microscopes, a theoretical barrier set by a compromise between diffraction effects at the aperture edge and spherical aberration placed crucial practical limits short of the resolution needed… Read More

London: Macmillan and Co, 1948. 1st Edition. BOUND FIRST EDITION OF THREE SIGNIFICANT PAPERS: (1) GABOR PAPER: Gabor's initial announcement of the "invention and development of the holographic method"; at that time, he called his new technology an ‘electron interference microscope' (Nobel Prize; Gabor, Nature, 161, 1948, p. 778). "The first public indication of Gabor's success came with a preliminary note [this paper] to Nature [in 1948]. The following year he wrote a more complete theoretical treatment [which we offer separately] in which he introduced the word ‘hologram' and indicated possible applications in light optics. Among these was the ability, using the same method, to record the data associated with 3-D objects in one interference object" (Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Sup., 17, 325). (2) BERRIMAN'S PAPER: First presentation of a "photographic emulsion which can record the track of any charged particle, regardless of its specific ionization, was achieved by [R. W.] Berriman… Read More

London: Richard and John E. Taylor, 1847. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FULL VOLUME, OF THE EARLIEST DEFINITIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PROPER MOTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM; Thomas Galloway was a Scottish mathematician; this paper was the most important of his career and won him the prestigious Royal Medal. The ‘Proper motion of the Solar System' is a phrase used to describe the absolute motion of the Solar System through deep space toward or away from the ‘fixed stars.' Galloway's paper presented the results of his calculations for determining the direction of the proper motion of the solar system from the apparent proper motions of stars in the southern hemisphere. (The ‘proper motion of the stars' refers to the change in position of the stars relative to the Earth over the course of many years, as measured in seconds of arc per year.) Galloway "used Gauss' method of least squares and principle of least constraint to attribute individual motion components to each star and our Solar System to develop his… Read More

London: Richard and John E. Taylor. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, EXTRACT OF THE EARLIEST DEFINITIVE ANALYSIS OF THE PROPER MOTION OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM; Thomas Galloway was a Scottish mathematician; this paper was the most important of his career and won him the prestigious Royal Medal. The ‘Proper motion of the Solar System' is a phrase used to describe the absolute motion of the Solar System through deep space toward or away from the ‘fixed stars.' Galloway's paper presented the results of his calculations for determining the direction of the proper motion of the solar system from the apparent proper motions of stars in the southern hemisphere. (The ‘proper motion of the stars' refers to the change in position of the stars relative to the Earth over the course of many years, as measured in seconds of arc per year.) Galloway "used Gauss' method of least squares and principle of least constraint to attribute individual motion components to each star and our Solar System to develop his equations… Read More

London: Macmillan, 1886. 1st Edition. FULL VOLUME FIRST EDITION WITH TWO WORKS BY FRANCIS GALTON. Sir Francis Galton F.R.S. (1822-1911) was a Victorian polymath: geographer, meteorologist, tropical explorer, founder of differential psychology, inventor of fingerprint identification, pioneer of statistical correlation and regression, convinced hereditarian, eugenicist, proto-geneticist, half-cousin of Charles Darwin and best-selling author. "To study humans, Galton founded the Anthropometric Laboratory in 1884. Data was accumulated through the physical measurement of hundreds of individuals, and results published in Natural Inheritance indicated physical characteristics indeed fit the normal law. Galton however, was not merely interested in physical characteristics, as he claimed that intelligence is inherited. "To demonstrate this, he needed a method to show the intelligence of one generation was "co-related" to that of the previous generation, so that he might argue for the causal… Read More

London: Harrison & Sons. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITIONS of Francis Galton's important 1890 and 1891 papers providing a scientific basis and model for fingerprint identification and analysis, offered here in separate leather bound volumes. Galton provides a detailed statistical model of fingerprint analysis and identification and encourages its use; the exhaustive statistical models he provides proved enough to encourage law enforcement to begin to use fingerprints and courts to then sanction that use. Note that we offer separately Galton's 1888 paper developing and demonstrating what would become known as the correlation coefficient (the statistical concept of correlation or, at publication, 'Co-relation'). The first paper is an ‘Abstract' of a paper appearing in the Transactions in the same year. The second paper is a first edition, first printing. The papers can be viewed as the basis for his Galton's "Finger-Prints" of 1892 (Printing and the Mind of Man 376). Galton was able to establish that… Read More

London: Macmillan & Co, 1892. Second expanded and corrected edition of Hereditary Genius, Galton's best known and most influential work. "Galton originated the practice of empirical research in medical genetics. ... "Hereditary Genius", his best-known and most influential book" (Norman Coll. I, 864). Published in 1892 twenty years after the first edition, Galton's research continued and considerable corrections have been made in the text and are delineated in the introduction. Initially, this work "on the genetics of intelligence [was] a compilation of biographical data of eminent men and their genetic history...[but] in assessing the role of heredity, Galton unfortunately disregarded such obvious factors as socio-economic status and opportunity for education" (ibid). Galton's ‘improvements' in this edition include Galton's admission of regret at the Galton the choice of Hereditary Genius. Instead, he now prefers Hereditary Ability which he sees as inclusive of the "comparative worth of… Read More

FIRST EDITION of the Gamow Factor as well as a paper by Max von Laue in response to Gamow's work. The first presentation of the Klein-Nishina formula is also included in this volume. GAMOW: In 1928 and in the first application of quantum mechanics to the inner workings of the atom, Gamow provided the first successful explanation of the behavior of radioactive elements using quantum theory. His theory of the alpha decay of a nucleus via tunneling was the first successful explanation of the behavior of radioactive elements using quantum theory. On the heels of that work and in the paper offered here, Gamow calculates the "Gamow factor," the probability for two nuclear particles overcoming the Coulomb barrier in order to undergo a nuclear reaction. It is still widely used to explain the measured rates of certain radioactive decays, the nature of fission and fusion reactions, and to provide guidance in early development of particle accelerators. ALSO INCLUDED: Max von Laue's paper provides a few… Read More

London: Macmillan, 1954. 1st Edition. First edition of Gamow's highly significant discovery of four different kinds of amino-acids - nucleotides - that were capable of information storage and transfer within a living cell. Gamow here proposes the ‘genetic code' and proves that "life is guided by information and inorganic processes are not" (Yockey, Information Theory, 8). "Gamow conjectured that DNA provided a direct template for proteins. When looked at in a certain way, Gamow contended, DNA could be seen to have twenty different cavities along its length, a number equal to that of the common amino acids" (The Francis Crick Papers, Defining the Genetic Coding Problem). Gamow's work was first printed in this volume of Nature in the form of a letter to Watson, ironically, the first positive response to the discovery of DNA that he and Crick had received. "In early 1954, less than a year after J. D. Watson and Francis Crick discovered the double helical structure of DNA, Gamow recognized that the… Read More

London: Taylor and Francis, 1859. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION (1859 extract) of GASSIOT'S FINAL PAPER REPORTING HIS CONCLUSIONS ON IMPORTANT EXPERIMENTS IN WHICH HE OBSERVED DEFLECTIONS OF CATHODE RAYS BY ELECTROSTATIC CHARGES & MAGNETISM. "Gassiot's work was particularly important in the demise of the contact theory of voltaic electricity" (Wikipedia). NOTE that Gassiot published four papers on this subject, this being the last. In a separate listing we offer all four papers together. In 1858 & 1859, John Gassiot reported experiments in which he observed deflections of cathode rays by electrostatic charges & magnetism. These findings (along with Plücker's) provided the first evidence that ‘cathode rays' carry an electric charge & might be particles. The roots of television can even be found in Gassiot's research into electric discharges in rarefied gases. With Faraday & others, Gassiot's work was part of the foundation of cathode-ray-tube technology which led much later to electron physics… Read More

London: Taylor and Francis. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITIONS OF 4 GASSIOT PAPERS (1839, 1844, 1858, & 1859 extracts) LEADING TO & CONCLUDING WITH IMPORTANT EXPERIMENTS IN WHICH HE OBSERVED DEFLECTIONS OF CATHODE RAYS BY ELECTROSTATIC CHARGES & MAGNETISM. "Gassiot's work was particularly important in the demise of the contact theory of voltaic electricity" (Wikipedia). In 1858 & 1859, John Gassiot reported experiments in which he observed deflections of cathode rays by electrostatic charges & magnetism. These findings (along with Plücker's) provided the first evidence that ‘cathode rays' carry an electric charge & might be particles. The roots of television can even be found in Gassiot's research into electric discharges in rarefied gases. With Faraday & others, Gassiot's work was part of the foundation of cathode-ray-tube technology which led much later to electron physics (Shiers, Early TV Bibliography). When Gassiot began his research the identity of static & voltaic seemed likely. "But if so,… Read More

Hanover: Carl Meyer, 1865. 1st German Edition. HANDSOMELY BOUND FIRST GERMAN EDITION (INCLUSIVE OF ITS ORIGINAL WRAPS) OF GAUSS' MASTERFUL WORK ON CELESTIAL MECHANICS & MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS. The work was first published in Latin in 1809 as "Theoria motus corporum coelestium in sectinibus conicis solem ambientum" ["Theory of the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies Moving about the Sun in Conic Sections"]. Gauss' work systematically develops his methods of orbital calculation and demonstrated his ability to accurately calculate and predict orbital location, including the theory and use of least squares," which is here applied for the first time (DSB). It introduced the Gaussian gravitational constant along with the first application of the normal distribution to observational errors" (History of Science: The Wenner Collection). The astronomical methodology Gauss described in Theory Motus required only a few modifications for use with computers and is still in use today. Gauss believed that "the… Read More

Paris: Chez Crochard, 1814. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING OF GAY-LUSSAC'S CLASSIC PAPER ON IODINE. Two volumes bound as one. The Dictionary of Scientific Biography notes this as one of Gay-Lussac's most important papers (DSB Noted in DSB, 5, 327). In the late nineteenth century the chemist Wilhelm Ostwald, winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize, selected Gay-Lussac's paper as "one of the first and one of the best monographs of all time on a single element and its most important compounds and as such it has served as a model for many later pieces of research" (Crosland, Gay-Lussac: Scientist and Bourgeois, 85). Louis Joseph Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) was a French chemist and physicist with a well-known rivalry with Humphry Davy. While J. C. Courtois discovered iodine in 1811— and while he recognized iodine to be a distinctive substance from its purple vapor — he confused its compound with hydrogen as that of hydrogen chloride. Gay-Lussac and Davy were asked to further explore the issue, however… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1955. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS of a paper in which Murray Gell-Mann and Abraham Pais make an interesting prediction about the decay of the kaon. A paper by Francis Low is also included (more below). "Murray Gell-Mann and Abraham Pais (1955) used an argument based on C invariance... to discuss the production and decay of a particle known as the neutral K meson, or K0. This particle, according to a theory by Gell-Mann and Kazuo Nishijima, carried a quantum number called strangeness, with S(K0 ) = +1, and so there should exist a neutral anti-K meson, called K 0 , with S(K 0 ) = -1. The theory demanded that strangeness be conserved in K-meson production but violated in its decay. Both the K0 and the K0 should be able to decay to a pair of mesons (e.g., + ). How, then, would one tell them apart? Gell-Mann and Pais solved this problem by applying a basic idea of quantum mechanics: The particle decaying to + would have to have the same behavior… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1951. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF 3 SIGNIFICANT PAPERS: GELL-MANN & LOW'S THEOREM, STERNHEIMER ON SHIELDING & ANTI-SHIELDING, & SCHWINGER ON PHENOMENOLOGICAL NEUTRON-PROTON INTERACTION. GELL-MANN & LOW: Tackling formalism and the bound-state problem, Gell-Mann and Low's paper is Nobel Prize winner Gell-Mann's first published paper. The theorem and formal derivation they achieve is a "cornerstone in quantum field theory and zero-temperature many-body theory" (Molinari, Journal of Mathematics, 48, 2007). In quantum field theory, the Gell-Mann and Low theorem "allows one to relate the ground (or vacuum) state of an interacting system to the ground state of the corresponding non-interacting theory. The theorem is useful because, among other things, by relating the ground state of the interacting theory to its non-interacting ground state, it allows one to express Green's functions  (which are defined as expectation values of Heisenberg-picture… Read More

New York: Physics Publishing Co, 1964. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL PAPER WRAPS OF GELL-MANN'S EXPLORATION OF HIS ‘CURRENT ALGEBRA'. THE PAPER REVIEWS, SLIGHTLY MODIFIES, GENERALIZES AND "ATTEMPTS TO APPLY A THEORY PROPOSED EARLIER OF A HIGHER BROKEN SYMMETRY THAN THE EIGHTFOLD WAY" (Gell-Mann, 1964, 63). Copies of this are rare as the journal was short-lived. Gell-Mann's paper appeared in its first issue. In Gell-Mann's own words, he constructed "a mathematical theory of the strongly interacting particles, which may or may not have anything to do with reality, find suitable algebraic relations that hold in the in the model, postulate their validity, and then throw away the model. We may compare this process to a method sometimes employed in French cuisine: a piece of pheasant meat is cooked between two slices of veal, which are then discarded" (ibid). "An important and beautiful paper, [Gell-Mann] outlined a program for abstracting relations from a field theory, keeping the ones that… Read More

FIRST EDITION OF MURRAY GELL-MANN'S SEMINAL PAPER POSITING THE IDEA OF ‘QUARKS' INSIDE THE ATOMIC NUCLEUS. Bound full volume. Gell-Mann took nearly a year to write this short, Nobel Prize winning paper, and yet in it, three quarks later named ‘up,' ‘down,' and ‘strange' "explained phenomena that theorists had been puzzling over for years" (Crease, The Second Creation, 283). "A landmark in contemporary physics, the eight-paragraph note is a model of scientific prose: brief, logical, achingly clear, so tightly and modestly drawn that its full scope may elude the reader. In the first line, the author sets forth his intention: "If we assume that the strong interactions of baryons and mesons are correctly described in terms of the broken eightfold way, we are tempted to look for some fundamental explanation of the situation." And then he did just that. Gell-Mann's paper "explained how various combinations of three particles from a triplet could produce baryons (such as protons and neutrons),… Read More

Lancaster: American Institute of Physics, 1957. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF 2 IMPORTANT PAPERS BY MURRAY GELL-MANN, THE 1st A "FAMOUS PAPER" IN WHICH GELL-MANN & BRUECKNER SHOW THAT RANDOM PHASE APPROXIMATION (RPA) CAN BE DERIVED BY SUMMING A SERIES OF FEYNMAN DIAGRAMS IN A DENSE ELECTRON GAS (WP; Ren, RPA, 2-3). Presenting a detailed calculation for the ground state energy of the interacting electron gas in the high density limit, this work (and another by Goldstone) represents "the earliest example...of the application of Feynman-type diagrammatic methods in condensed-matter theory" (ibid). "The consistency in [Gell-Mann & Brueckner's] results became an important justification and motivated a very strong growth in theoretical physics in the late 50's and 60's" (IPFS, RPA). The second paper, authored by Gell-Mann alone, generalizes the methods he & Brueckner developed "so that not only the ground state but also the low excited states of an electron gas can be discussed"; he… Read More

1728. 1st Edition. First Edition of George Bernhard Bilfinger's De Causa gravitatis physica generali disquisitio experimentalis (On the General Physical Cause of Gravity) - a prize winning explanation of the cause of the weight of bodies designed to check Galileo's and Edme Mariotte's theories. In so doing, Bilfinger discusses the work of many important contemporary scientists. This work won the highest award in a contest sponsored by the Paris Academy (a contest in which Bernoulli was also a contestant). At once a physicist, a mathematician, an astronomer, a botanist, and a philosopher, Bilfinger was one of the most accomplished and versatile thinkers of his time and was appointed professor of experimental and theoretical physics at St. Petersburg by Peter the Great. Although he was the pupil, friend, and defender of Christian Wolff, Bilfinger concentrated his attention on the philosophy and mathematics of Gottfried Leibniz. Bilfinger's work was of great import to Kant. In 1725 and while at the… Read More

Palo Alto, California: Stanford University Press, 1991. 1st Edition. Issued on the occasion of the conference, "Psychoanalysis and Culture: The Contributions of Sigmund Freud," held at Stanford University, January 11-13, 1991. Along with the items noted in the title, also included are essays by Haskell F. Norman, M.D., Roy A. Ginsburg, M.D., and Paul Robinson. CONDITION & DETAILS: Tall 8vo. 10.75 x 7.75 inches (27cm x 19.5cm). 81 pp. Bound in original stiff grey printed wrappers lettered at the spine and on the front cover. Frontispiece portrait of Freud and illustrations throughout. Bright and very clean inside and out. Pristine.