Search Results: Authors starting with J from Atticus Rare Books

London: Royal Society, 1937. 1st Edition. FULL VOLUME: FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF ONE OF THE MOST FASCINATING PHENOMENA IN MODERN PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY", THE JAHN AND TELLER EFFECT (Bersuker, The Jahn-Teller Effect). In a sophisticated application of group theory to quantum mechanics, Jahn and Teller here prove "that orbital nonlinear spatially degenerate molecules CANNOT be stable" (Wikipedia). This paper puts forth the groundbreaking prediction that "a nonlinear molecule which is in a degenerate state will seek to change its structure in order to remove as much of the degeneracy as possible;" put another way, "if the lowest energy level of a molecule is degenerate... it will distort spontaneously so as to remove the degeneracy and make one energy level more stable (Seip, The Jahn-Teller Effect, 1976, 1; Weinstein's World of Chemistry). "While the basic theorem, first published in 1937, had to await experimental verification for 15 years, the intervening years have seen rapid development,… Read More

Lancaster: The Franklin Institute, 1931. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF SIR JAMES HOPWOOD JEANS' 1931 LECTURE "THE ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM" UPON WINNING THE FRANKLIN MEDAL OF THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE. Jeans and Arthur Eddington are considered the founders of British cosmology. Sir James Hopwood Jeans was an English physicist, mathematician, and astronomer who made significant contributions in many areas of physics, stellar evolution, quantum theory, and the theory of radiation. Jeans was awarded the Franklin Medal based upon his contributions to cosmology, particularly those of the late 1920s. As early as 1923, Jeans wrote "Astronomy does not know whether or not life is important in the scheme of nature, but she begins to whisper that life must necessarily be somewhat rare" (Jeans, 1923, 30). By the late 1920s, Jeans's view had solidified. "The numbers varied somewhat, but always present [in his work] was the basic scenario that the stars are sparsely scattered in space, close… Read More

London: Taylor and Francis, 1862. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FULL VOLUME 152, PART II OF THE 1862 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS COMPLETE WITH A NUMBER OF NOTABLE PAPERS. Handsomely illustrated with 48 plates. Fleeming Jenkin was a professor of engineering at Edinburgh as well as an imaginative electrician and cable engineer of note. Present here is Jenkin's important paper on the electrical theory of submarine cables in undersea telecommunications. In it, Jenkin makes "a determination... of the specific inductive capacity of gutta-percha... This was the very first true measurement of the specific inductive capacity of a dielectric which had been made after the discovery by Faraday of the existence of the property, and his primitive measurement of it... At the time when Jenkin made his measurements the existence of specific inductive capacity was either unknown, or ignored, or denied, by almost all the scientific authorities of the day" (Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin). Note that Part II of this paper… Read More

National Academy of Sciences, 1955. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS & HOUSED IN A CUSTOM PAMPHLET CASE of the groundbreaking theoretical paper by Niels K. Jerne describing his theory of antibody formulation. This article, which has 1,075 citations, revolutionized the theory of monoclonal antibodies and Jerne shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system." the Nobel Prize Committee awarded Jerne his prize, they did so noting that his "view of the nature of the immune system constitutes the basis for modern immunology" (Nobel Prize Committee) "Jerne's "natural-selection theory regarding antibody formation breaks with old views on the immune response and is a starting point of modern cellular immunology" (Nobel Prize Press Release). Jerne "proposed that a broad range of specificities of antibodies were released into the blood spontaneously and that antibodies were subject to a replicative… Read More

HANDSOMELY BOUND, FULL VOLUME FIRST EDITION & "FIRST PUBLISHED DESCRIPTION" OF [JEVONS'] LOGIC MACHINE, often called a ‘logical piano' because of its resemblance to that instrument" (The Origins of Cyberspace, 137). Jevons' machine was the first logic machine with enough power to solve complicated problems with superhuman speed" - in other words, faster than could a human being. In 1866, William Stanley Jevons, an English economist and logician, was appointed Professor of Logic and Mental and Moral Philosophy at Owens College, Manchester. As did many other logicians of the 19th century, Jevons wanted to elucidate clear links between mathematics and logic. He was particularly drawn toward developing the ways in which logical problems could be resolved by just repeatedly applying simple, mechanical rules. It was during this time that a principle of reasoning dawned on him that he expressed as follows: "Whatever is true of a thing is true of its like" (Jevons, Elementary Lessons on Logic). The… Read More

London: Harrison & Sons, 1878. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION & PRINTING OF JOULE'S FINAL DETERMINATION OF THE MECHANICAL EQUIVALENT OF HEAT. This was the "last experimental research of any magnitude that Joule undertook" (Reynolds, Memoir of James Prescott Joule, 165). Crookes information appears below. Volume includes Parts I & II of the Phil Trans bound together and 70 plates. Inspired by his belief that heat was derived from work, Joule spent a great deal of his life converting mechanical work directly into heat without any electrical steps as he worked to determine the mechanical equivalent of heat. The concept of the mechanical equivalent of heat states "that motion and heat are mutually interchangeable and that in every case, a given amount of work would generate the same amount of heat, provided the work done is totally converted to heat energy" (Wikipedia). In this paper, Joule discusses problems relating to his discovery of the first law of thermodynamics, the principle of the conservation… Read More