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HUYGENS, Christiaan (1629-1695). Trait de la lumire... Avec un discours de la cause de la pesanteur. Leiden: Pieter van der Aa, 1690.
4o (232 x 181 mm). Two parts in one, second part with separate title, continuously paginated, general title printed in red and black, both titles with printer's woodcut device, woodcut head-pieces and initials, 89 woodcut diagrams in text, a few repeated. (Upper blank margin clipped on title-page and front free endpaper, some occasional minor spotting or foxing.) Contemporary French speckled calf, spine and board edges gilt (spine ends chipped, some wear to joints and corners); quarter morocco slipcase.
Provenance: Jean Gallois (1632-1707), editor of the Journal des savans (author's presentation inscription on title: "Pour Monsieur Gallois..."); FRANOIS ARAGO (1786-1853), physicist and astronomer (signature on front free endpaper "Franois," and presenation inscription on title: "A monsieur Regnault de la part de son confrre et ami F. Arago"); HENRI REGNAULT(1810-1878), physicist and chemist (gift inscription from Arago on title); W. Scherzi (deleted signature on title); Robert Honeyman (bookplate, sale 6 November 1979, lot 1730).
PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, LARGE-PAPER ISSUE of Huygens' pathbreaking exposition of his wave or pulse theory of light. Huygens had developed his theory of light in 1676 and 1677, and completed his Trait de la lumire in 1678. He read portions of the treatise to the Academy during the following year but left it unpublished, until Newton's Principia (1687) and a visit with Newton in 1689 stimulated him to have it printed at last. "Light, according to Huygens, is an irregular series of shock waves which proceeds with very great, but finite, velocity through the ether. This ether consists of uniformly minute, elastic particles compressed very close together. Light, therefore, is not an actual transference of matter but rather of a 'tendency to move,' a serial displacement similar to a collision which proceeds through a row of balls... Huygens therefore concluded that new wave fronts originate around each particle that is touched by light and extend outward from the particle in the form of hemispheres..." (DSB). His wave theory of light was in opposition to the corpuscular theory of light advanced by Newton, and was eventually completed and confirmed by Young and Fresnel over a century later.
The titles in this copy are in the probably earlier state, bearing only the author's initials, as in the large-paper copy described by Horblit. The watermark of crowned powder horn and pendant initials also corresponds with the Horblit copy. AN OUTSTANDING ASSOCIATION COPY. Dibner, Heralds of Science 145; En franais dans le texte 25; Grolier/Horblit 54; Norman 1139; NLM/Krivatsy 6124.
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Provenance: Jean Gallois (1632-1707), editor of the Journal des savans (author's presentation inscription on title: "Pour Monsieur Gallois..."); FRANOIS ARAGO (1786-1853), physicist and astronomer (signature on front free endpaper "Franois," and presenation inscription on title: "A monsieur Regnault de la part de son confrre et ami F. Arago"); HENRI REGNAULT(1810-1878), physicist and chemist (gift inscription from Arago on title); W. Scherzi (deleted signature on title); Robert Honeyman (bookplate, sale 6 November 1979, lot 1730).
PRESENTATION COPY OF THE FIRST EDITION, LARGE-PAPER ISSUE of Huygens' pathbreaking exposition of his wave or pulse theory of light. Huygens had developed his theory of light in 1676 and 1677, and completed his Trait de la lumire in 1678. He read portions of the treatise to the Academy during the following year but left it unpublished, until Newton's Principia (1687) and a visit with Newton in 1689 stimulated him to have it printed at last. "Light, according to Huygens, is an irregular series of shock waves which proceeds with very great, but finite, velocity through the ether. This ether consists of uniformly minute, elastic particles compressed very close together. Light, therefore, is not an actual transference of matter but rather of a 'tendency to move,' a serial displacement similar to a collision which proceeds through a row of balls... Huygens therefore concluded that new wave fronts originate around each particle that is touched by light and extend outward from the particle in the form of hemispheres..." (DSB). His wave theory of light was in opposition to the corpuscular theory of light advanced by Newton, and was eventually completed and confirmed by Young and Fresnel over a century later.
The titles in this copy are in the probably earlier state, bearing only the author's initials, as in the large-paper copy described by Horblit. The watermark of crowned powder horn and pendant initials also corresponds with the Horblit copy. AN OUTSTANDING ASSOCIATION COPY. Dibner, Heralds of Science 145; En franais dans le texte 25; Grolier/Horblit 54; Norman 1139; NLM/Krivatsy 6124.