Search Results: Authors starting with S from Atticus Rare Books

London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS OF THE 1967 LETTER TO THE EDITOR IN WHICH CARL SAGAN & HAROLD MOROWITZ HYPOTHESIZED LIFE MAY EXIST ON VENUS. The authors' letter to the editor presents an analysis of the issue of life on Venus and speculates about the possibility that the shadowy patches in the clouds of Venus are, in fact, microscopic life. Fifty-three years later, on the 14th of September 2020, research that set out to prove or disprove Sagan and Morowitz's hypothesis is close to proving them right. As did Sagan and Morowitz, the new research suggests that if life it exists, it is in the clouds surrounding Venus. Their 1967 letter begins with the following sentence "While the surface conditions of Venus make the hypothesis of life there implausible, the clouds of Venus are a different story altogether" (Sagan & Morowitz, 1259). "The unexpected atmospheric detection of phosphine, a smelly gas made by microbes on Earth, could spark a revolution in astrobiology" (… Read More

Paris: Mallet-Bachelier, 1913. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS OF SAGNAC'S "TWO SEMINAL PAPERS" DEMONSTRATING THE SAGNAC EFFECT (Dictionary of Scientific Biography XII). The effect is most simply described as a phenomenon encountered in interferometry; elicited by rotation, it is a phase shift showing "the difference in travel time between two photons traveling along the same path in opposite directions" (Frauendiener, Notes on the Sagnac Effect in General Relativity, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, 8.23.18). Today, the Sagnac effect influences precise measurements on Earth and thus are taken into account and routinely incorporated into GPS calculations. "Together [the two papers offered here] constitute the first interferometry experiment aimed at observing the correlation of angular velocity and phase showing that if a beam of light is split and sent in two opposite directions around a closed path on a revolving platform with mirrors on its perimeter, and then the beams… Read More

Paris: J.-B. Baillière et Fils, 1904. 1st Edition. UNCOMMON 1st edition of Henri Saintignon's 1904 book "Laennec sa vie et son oeuvre," an extensive work on the French physician and inventor of the stethoscope, Rene Theophile Hyacinthe Laennec (1781-1826). This work is largely available only in reprint. To date, Saintignon is considered the most respected biographer of the life and work of Laennec. Laennec is considered the father of clinical auscultation and wrote the first descriptions of bronchiectasis and cirrhosis and also classified pulmonary conditions such as pneumonia, bronchiectasis, pleurisy, emphysema, pneumothorax, phthisis and other lung diseases from the sounds he heard with his invention. Later, he would determine that his diagnoses were supported by the observations he made during autopsies. Laënnec went on to publish the first seminal work on the use of listening to body sounds, De L'auscultation Mediate (On Mediate Auscultation). "Laënnec perfected the art of physical… Read More

1968. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF SAKHAROV'S PATHBREAKING THEORY, THE FIRST QUANTIZATION OF SPACE. Full volume with original wraps bound in. In this paper, Sakharov suggests that quantum fluctuations of the vacuum induce the geometry of spacetime. His work gave rise to new research areas in physics, work that continues to this day. Soviet Physics Doklady is published by the American Institute of Physics and is an English translation of the physics sections of the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was a "Russian nuclear physicist, Soviet dissident, an activist for disarmament, peace and human rights" (Sakharov Human Rights Prize, 15 January 2014). In 1968 he sought address a number of physics ‘oddities', particularly that gravity seems to operate among complex aggregates of interacting particles but does not seem to impact interactions between elementary particles. As well, Sakharov wanted" to derive Einstein's general relativity formulas from a more… Read More

London: Macmillan & Sons, 1974. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS of Stephen Salter's influential paper on a wave energy converter (WEC) he invented known, the celebrated and eponymous "nodding duck," commonly called Salter's Duck. In the 1970s, alternative energy was beginning to gain a lot of hype due to the oil crisis, Salter's design was the most exciting possibility. Note: Information on Darbyshire's discovery appears at the end of this write-up. Stephen Salter is Emeritus Professor of Engineering Design at the University of Edinburgh and inventor of the eponymous Salter duck wave energy device. He is also a proponent of geoengineering and is responsible for creating the concept of the mechanical enhancement of clouds to achieve cloud reflectivity enhancement. Salter is responsible for the design and invention of the wide tank at the University of Edinburgh, the world's first multi-directional wave tank equipped with absorbing wavemakers. With the aim of providing a renewable… Read More

1955. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION BOUND EXTRACTS OF THE NOBEL PRIZE WINNING DISCOVERY OF THE STRUCTURE OF INSULIN (Garrison-Morton, 1207). "Unraveling insulin, a hormone that regulates glucose and other nutrients, was the culmination of ten years of study requiring his development of new methodology for ascertaining the make-up of amino acids and proteins, and allowed the affordable synthetic production of insulin" (NNDB). Sanger's work, the first sequencing of any protein, "revealed that a protein has a definite constant, genetically determined sequence -- and yet a sequence with no general rule for its assembly. Therefore it had to have a code" (Judson, Eighth Day of Creation, 188). Sanger was a British biochemist whose discoveries have been fundamental to the development of modern biological science. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1958 for the work evidenced in these papers. CONDITION & DETAILS: All the papers have been handsomely bound in brown cloth over green linen; gilt lettered at the spine… Read More

New York: American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2006. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION of a work that contributed greatly to our understanding of our ‘inner GPS' -- "where we are, how we know the way from one place to another, and how we store this information in order to immediately find the way when we repeat a path" (Adaes, The Coordinates of a Nobel Prize, 2014). This work builds upon and contributes significantly to the 2005 work of Sargolini's co-authors who won the Nobel Prize (also in 2005) for their discovery of a key component the brain's positioning system - ‘grid cells.' "Grid cells are neurons that fire when a freely moving animal traverses a set of small regions (firing fields) which are roughly equal in size and arranged in a periodic triangular array that covers the entire available environment" (Wikipedia). Sargolini et al proved that "navigation requires representation of the animal's orientation relative to fixed landmarks in the external environment" Shepherd,… Read More

Berlin: Julius Springer, 1935. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF ERWIN SCHRODINGER'S SEMINAL THOUGHT EXPERIMENT KNOWN AS "SCHRODINGER'S CAT," present here in all three papers.This is not an ex-library copy. In May of 1935, Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen's published a paper (the famous EPR paper) on quantum entanglement that argued, in part, that quantum mechanics was not a complete physical theory. After its publication, and in a series of letters between Einstein and Schrodinger, Schrodinger became intrigued by what Einstein believed was an absurd contradiction in the application of Heisenberg and Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics to the world of tangible objects. The experiment Schrodinger designed - as famous in physics as it is in philosophy -- illustrates the conflict Einstein and Schrodinger perceived between what quantum theory argues is true about the nature and behavior of matter on the microscopic level, and what we observe to be true about the nature… Read More

Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1944. 1st Edition. 1944 FIRST EDITION. SCARCE PRE-PUBLICATION OF SCHRODINGER'S SEMINAR LECTURES. HECTOGRAPHED TYPESCRIPT housed in a custom case. Signed copy of the physicist, C.E. Easthope. OCLC cites only a handful of these specific printings: "very small edition of the lectures was published in hectograph form by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies" (University of St. Andrews). A hectograph was an early apparatus for copying documents. While this specific print-run is unknown, in similar cases it is usually under 30 copies. "From January to March 1944 Schrodinger returned to one of his first loves in science in a course of lectures on Statistical Thermodynamics. They were published in a small hectographed edition... In [this work] he covered the fundamentals of the subject with an insight and clarity that have never been equaled. The book is a distillation of his many years of creative work in the field" (Moore, Schrodinger, 415). "The… Read More

London: Royal Society. 1st Edition. TWO VOLUME FIRST EDITIONS OF THE BAKERIAN LECTURES IN WHICH THE GERMAN-BRITISH PHYSICIST SIR ARTHUR SCHUSTER "WAS THE FIRST TO SHOW THAT AN ELECTRIC CURRENT IS CONDUCTED BY IONS" (Knill). In these lectures, Schuster "also showed that the current could be maintained by a small potential once ions were present. He was the first to indicate a path toward determining the charge-mass ration e/m for cathode rays by using a magnetic field. This method would ultimately lead to the discovery of the electron" (ibid). "In 1884 [presented here in the first lecture and] following his own cathode ray experiments, Schuster claimed that cathode rays are particulate in nature and that the particles all carry the same quantity of electricity. He also performed experiments on the magnetic deflection of the rays, which by 1890 [in the second lecture] allowed him to compute upper and lower bounds for the ratio of charge to mass of the particles comprising the rays... Schuster… Read More

Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1837. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING OF SCHWANN'S SEMINAL WORK ON PUTREFACTION AND FERMENTATION, HERE PROVING THAT PUTREFACTION IS PRODUCED BY LIVING BODIES" (Garrison & Morton, 674). Full volume. With this work, Schwann "proved categorically that alcoholic fermentation was the result of a living organism, not an inanimate chemical mass" (Hornsey, A History, 409) Independently of Cagniard-Latour, Schwann discovered the yeast cell" (GM 674). At the time, the prevailing theory was that fermentation was caused by oxidation and Schwann's discovery that alcoholic fermentation and the fermentation that causes putrefaction were carried out by microbes was ignored and even ridiculed at the time. "Today, he is regarded as the founder of the germ theory of putrefaction and fermentation" (ibid). Theodor Schwann (1810-1882) was a German anatomist and physiologist; his mentor was Johannes Múller, often regarded as the father of experimental physiology. In the 1930s,… Read More

American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1946. 1st Edition. FIRST ADDITION OF "ONE OF THE MOST SIGNIFICANT CHANGES TO THE PERIODIC TABLE SINCE MENDELEEV'S 19th century DESIGN" (Seaborg Obituary, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory). The paper includes 9 illustrations, two of which are periodic tables inclusive of Seaborg's addition. American scientists Glenn Seaborg (1912-1999) developed the ‘actinide concept' "of heavy element electronic structure which predicted that the actinides - including the first eleven transuranium elements - would form a transition series analogous to the rare earth series of lanthanide elements" (ibid). Seaborg proposed the actinide concept in 1945, and a year later described his discoveries and the actinide concept in a paper - this paper -- "The Transuranium Elements" (Science 104 pp. 379-386, 25 October 1946). Seaborg's formulation of the concept of heavy element electronic structure showed how the transuranium elements fit into the periodic table.… Read More

American Physical Society, 1981. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF "THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL ALCHEMICAL EXPERIMENT IN HISTORY" (Valijak, Vintage News, 2017). Seaborg and his team transmuted several thousand atoms of bismuth into gold for the first time by accelerating carbon and neon nuclei to near light speed and then directing them into foils of bismuth, splitting off parts of the bismuth nucleus. This technique, while too costly for routine manufacturing, is the modern version of the "Philosopher's Stone," a legendary method for turning base metals into gold. "In 1980, he used his extensive knowledge of nuclear chemistry and nuclear physics to conduct the first successful alchemical experiment in the history of humanity. He employed a particle accelerator to remove protons and neutrons from several thousand atoms of bismuth and managed to transmute them into atoms of gold. Although several thousand atoms is a quantity so small that it is not even visible to the naked eye, Seaborg… Read More

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1891. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF THE FIRST ACCURATE BALANCE FOR MEASURING CHEMICALS, the invention of the chain balance. Complete original issue. The history of scales and balances dates back to Ancient Egypt when a simplistic equal-arm balance on a fulcrum was used to compare two masses. The weighing of chemicals required something more exact, however. The chain balance was an ingenious attachment to the ordinary chemical balance. First conceived and patented in 1890 by Louis Marie Victor Serrin a French inventor who, in search of a more accurate way to measure chemicals, employed a light chain. One end of the chain was "attached to one arm of the balance, and the other to a movable arm sliding on the case of the machine. By raising or lowering this arm, the fraction of the chain carried by the balance arm is diminished or increased. In using the device the weighing is made approximately by weights in the usual way, and when nearly in balance the… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1955. 1st Edition. One of the major issues in relation to Einstein's relativity was raised in 1933 by Dayton Clarence Miller and his ‘ether drift experiment'. In one of the most interesting and problematic "reviews of special relativity, [Miller] questioned Michelson and Morley's ‘null result'. According to [Miller], a systematic periodic term would alter the interferometer data, regardless of any statistical error, fluctuations or other mechanical effects" (Shankland, 1955). Miller himself was a vociferous opponent of Einstein's relativity - something his experiment seemed to back up". Miller's results gnawed at the scientific community, particularly given that "For nearly thirty years the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment obtained by Dayton C. Miller on Mount Wilson have stood at variance with all other trials of this experiment" (Shankland 1955). "Shankland believed that the accepted direct explanation for the Michelson-Morley experiment is… Read More

New York: American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 1949. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF CLAUDE SHANNON'S FOLLOW UP TO HIS SEMINAL MASTER'S THESIS "frequently called the most important master's thesis of the twentieth century with respect to the influence it had on the development of the electronic and computer industries...[and] probably the most significant theoretical step toward the construction of electronic digital computers made prior to World War II" (Origins of Cyberspace 363). In the paper offered, Shannon continued his work using Boolean algebra to synthesize and simplify relay switching circuits, and further, demonstrating that "symmetric Boolean functions may be realized with considerably fewer components than most functions" (Introduction to Logic Design, 181). Known as the Shannon theorem on symmetric functions "Shannon proposes methods for synthesizing switching circuits according to their function to achieve the minimum number of switches for a given task. The… Read More

New York: Institute of Radio Engineers, 1949. 1st Edition. TRUE FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL PRINTED WRAPS OF CLAUDE SHANNON'S MATHEMATICAL PROOF & REFINEMENT OF NYQUIST'S SAMPLING THEOREM (now Nyquist-Shannon), "THE BACKBONE OF MODERN COMMUNICATIONS" (Gran, Numerical Computing, 136). Following this publication, the paper appeared in Bell Telephone's Technical Publications. Shannon's paper, a manuscript first written in 1940 but held from publication until after WWII ended, "set the foundation of information theory. [It] is a masterpiece both in terms of achievement and conciseness. It is undoubtedly one of the theoretical works that has had the greatest impact on modern electrical engineering" (Unser, Sampling, 1). Note that we offer the Nyquist paper separately. An American mathematician and engineer, Claude Shannon is most often connected to the sampling theorem which bears his name. "Shannon is considered the father of information theory, which laid the foundation for digital communications and… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1984. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF SHECHTMAN'S DISCOVERY OF QUASICRYSTALS. Once considered impossible, quasicrystals are a form of solid matter whose atoms are arranged like those of a crystal but assume patterns that do not exactly repeat themselves. While on a sabbatical leave at the U. S. National Bureau of Standards in 1982, Dan Shechtman, Professor of Materials Science at the Technion Institute in Israel, discovered the icosahedral phase - a discovery that opened the new field of quasiperiodic crystals. Many renowned researchers doubted the veracity and accuracy of Dr. Shechtman's findings. No less a light than Linus Pauling is quoted as saying "There is no such thing as quasicrystals, only quasi-scientists". When Shechtman returned to Israel, he was initially shunned and even asked to leave his research group. However, as other scientists confirmed the existence and properties of quasicrystals, Shechtman's research was confirmed.… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1952. 1st Edition. BOUND FULL VOLUME FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST MODEL OF ELECTRON-HOLE RECOMBINATION IN A HIGHLY PURE SEMICONDUCTOR. Cited over 2500 since publication, this model is now known as the Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) recombination and is of import to solar and semiconductor technology. "Any electron which exists in the conduction band is in a meta-stable state and will eventually stabilize to a lower energy position in the valence band. When this occurs, it must move into an empty valence band state. Therefore, when the electron stabilizes back down into the valence band, it also effectively removes a hole. This process is called recombination" (Honsberg & Bowden, Types of Recombination). The model Shockley and Read put forth in this paper is essentially recombination through defects; in other words, recombination does not happen in a pure material. The steps involved in SRH are two-fold: (1) "An electron (or hole) is trapped by an energy state in the… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1952. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF THE FIRST MODEL OF ELECTRON-HOLE RECOMBINATION IN A HIGHLY PURE SEMICONDUCTOR. Cited over 2500 since publication, this model is now known as the Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) recombination and is of import to solar and semiconductor technology. "Any electron which exists in the conduction band is in a meta-stable state and will eventually stabilize to a lower energy position in the valence band. When this occurs, it must move into an empty valence band state. Therefore, when the electron stabilizes back down into the valence band, it also effectively removes a hole. This process is called recombination" (Honsberg & Bowden, Types of Recombination). The model Shockley and Read put forth in this paper is essentially recombination through defects; in other words, recombination does not happen in a pure material. The steps involved in SRH are two-fold: (1) "An electron (or hole) is trapped by an energy state in the… Read More