Search Results: Titles starting with U from The Manhattan Rare Book Company

n.pl: n.p., n.d.. First edition. Very Good. A CLASS DIVIDED: A UNIQUE COLLECTION OF SIGNATURES OF WEST POINT ALUMNI SOON TO BE DIVIDED BY THE CIVIL WAR. WITH: FINELY DRAWN INK MAP OF WEST POINT BY ALEXANDER STEWART WEBB AND ELEGANT WATERCOLOR VIEW. FROM THE COLLECTION OF JEB STUART. The Signatures: The present collection includes two large displays of signatures, on sheets featuring numerous small boxes printed onto them filled in by each individual with their name and a location, perhaps their current residences. The effect these documents give is the impression of an informal assortment of hand-written calling cards amassed after a social function of West Point alumni. Predominately, the sheets are signed by most of the Class of 1854, a fateful group who were soon be divided by the impending Civil War. Beyond this outstanding group, other graduating classes are represented as well as certain individuals who were not graduates of the USMA but no less salient figures of wartime… Read More

Leipzig: Hirzel, 1865. First edition. Original wrappers. FIRST EDITIONS (JOURNAL ISSUES IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS) OF TWO LANDMARK PAPERS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF TOPOLOGY, IN WHICH IN WHICH, AMONG OTHER THINGS, MÖBIUS DESCRIBED THE MÖBIUS STRIP, DEFINED THE TOPOLOGICAL CONCEPTS NOW KNOWN AS GENUS AND ORIENTABILITY, AND SHOWED THAT ALL CLOSED ORIENTABLE SURFACES OF A PARTICULAR GENUS ARE TOPOLOGICALLY EQUIVALENT TO EACH OTHER. The two papers offered here contain three key discoveries that pioneered the branch of mathematics known as topology. 1. The Möbius Strip. "Möbius first described the 'Möbius band' in a paper presented to the Paris Academy in 1861 as an entry to a competition on the theme 'Improve in some important point the geometric theory of polyhedra.' Möbius's paper, written in bad French and containing many new ideas, was not understood by the jury, and like the other papers submitted to the competition, was not awarded the prize. The content of this paper was later published by… Read More

Leipzig; Leipzig and Heidelberg: Quandt & Händel; C.F. Winter, 1871. First edition. Original wrappers. Very Good. INTRODUCING THE PERIODIC TABLE TO THE WESTERN WORLD: FIRST EDITIONS OF TWO KEY PAPERS RELATING TO MENDELEEV'S DISCOVERY OF THE PERIODIC LAW-ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES IN MODERN CHEMISTRY. One of the most consequential scientific discoveries of the last 150 years was Dmitri Mendeleev's realization that if the chemical elements were listed in a natural order (originally by atomic weight, and later by atomic number), then the list could be broken down into rows and displayed in the form of a table in which the elements within each column of the table had similar chemical properties. The resulting tabular display of the elements is now known as the periodic table. Mendeleev explained the ability to construct such tables in terms of a general principle that chemical properties change periodically as one moves along the ordered list of elements. This insight had an important… Read More

Leipzig: Barth-Verlag. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. First complete edition of Rontgen's announcement of the discovery of the X-Ray. "Hertz and Lenard had published on the penetrating powers of cathode rays (electrons) and Rontgen thought that there were unsolved problems worth investigation... As a preliminary to viewing the cathode rays on a fluorescent screen, Rontgen completely covered his discharge tube with a black card, and then chanced to notice that such a screen lying on a bench some distance away was glowing brightly. Although others had operated Crookes tubes in laboratories for over thirty years, it was Rontgen who found that X rays are emitted by the part of the glass wall of the tube that is opposite the cathode and that receives the beam of cathode rays. He spent six weeks in absolute concentration, repeating and extending his observations on the properties of the new rays. He found that they travel in straight lines, cannot be refracted or reflected, are not deviated by a… Read More

Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Fine. FIRST PRINTING of Hertz's first three papers on electromagnetic waves; the foundation for wireless communication. "Experimental proof by Hertz of the Faraday-Maxwell hypothesis that electrical waves can be projected through space was begun in 1887, eight years after Maxwell's death. The two main requirements were (a) a method of producing the waves, supposing that they existed, and (b) a method of detecting them once they were produced. Hertz found the first problem easy to solve. He used the oscillatory discharge of a condenser. Detection was much more difficult, because there then existed no means of detecting currents alternating at the high speed of these waves. Hertz in fact used an effect as old as the discovery of electricity itself- the electric spark. By inducing the waves to produce an electrical spark at a distance, with no apparent connection between the oscillator and the spark gap, and by moving the sparking… Read More

Zurich: Jahrgang, Erstes Heft, 1865. First edition. Original wrappers. Very Good. FIRST EDITION IN SCARCE ORIGINAL WRAPPERS OF CLAUSIUS' INTRODUCTION OF THE TERM 'ENTROPY' AND THE CULMINATION OF HIS WORK ON THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS; PRECEDES THE PUBLICATION IN ANNALEN DER PHYSIK. Clausius explains his introduction of the term 'entropy' as follows: "I propose to name the quantity S the entropy of the system, after the Greek word [τροπη trope], the transformation. I have deliberately chosen the word entropy to be as similar as possible to the word energy: the two quantities to be named by these words are so closely related in physical significance that a certain similarity in their names appears to be appropriate." Clausius concludes the present paper with his now classic statement of the first and second laws of thermodynamics: 'Die Energie der Welt ist constant; die Entropie strebt einen Maximum zu.' ('The energy of the universe is constant; the entropy of the universe tends towards a… Read More