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GUERICKE, Otto von (1602-1668). Experimenta nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio. Amsterdam: Joannes Jansson à Waesberg, 1672.
2° (310 x 204mm). Additional engraved title, engraved portrait of the author, 2 double-page plates and 20 illustrations, of which 7 are full-page, double columns. (Portrait lightly browned, unobtrusive waterstaining in upper margin of first half, a few light spots.) Contemporary vellum.
FIRST EDITION. ‘Guericke's invention of the air pump grew out of his interest in the nature of space, particularly in Descartes' belief in the equivalence of space and matter and denial of the possibility of vacuum. Guericke suspected otherwise, and, after several false starts, managed to construct a hollow apparatus from which he evacuated the air with a suction pump, thus disproving Descartes' claims and resolving the old controversy between vacuists and the plenists’ (Norman). The most important result of Guericke's experiments was the discovery of the elasticity of air which led him to investigate the decrease of air density with height, and to relate variations in air pressure to changes in weather. The folding plate (see illustration) shows the famous Magdeburg experiment of 1657. Dibner Heralds 55; Grolier/Horblit 44; Krivatsy 5074; Norman 952; Sparrow Milestones 90; Wellcome III 175; Wheeler Gift 170.
2° (310 x 204mm). Additional engraved title, engraved portrait of the author, 2 double-page plates and 20 illustrations, of which 7 are full-page, double columns. (Portrait lightly browned, unobtrusive waterstaining in upper margin of first half, a few light spots.) Contemporary vellum.
FIRST EDITION. ‘Guericke's invention of the air pump grew out of his interest in the nature of space, particularly in Descartes' belief in the equivalence of space and matter and denial of the possibility of vacuum. Guericke suspected otherwise, and, after several false starts, managed to construct a hollow apparatus from which he evacuated the air with a suction pump, thus disproving Descartes' claims and resolving the old controversy between vacuists and the plenists’ (Norman). The most important result of Guericke's experiments was the discovery of the elasticity of air which led him to investigate the decrease of air density with height, and to relate variations in air pressure to changes in weather. The folding plate (see illustration) shows the famous Magdeburg experiment of 1657. Dibner Heralds 55; Grolier/Horblit 44; Krivatsy 5074; Norman 952; Sparrow Milestones 90; Wellcome III 175; Wheeler Gift 170.
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