Details
BOUGUER, Pierre. Traité d'optique sur la gradation de la lumiere; ouvrage posthume. Paris: H. L. Gurin & L. F. Delatour, 1760.
4o (247 x 190 mm). 7 folding plates, woodcut title vignette and tailpieces. (Some occasional very pale spotting.) Contemporary cat's-paw calf, spine gilt (some mostly minor wear, corners worn).
FIRST EDITION of Bouguer's second and expanded work on photometry, completed just before his death and published by his friend the astronomer l'Abbé Nicolas Louis de la Caille. "The Traité goes far beyond the Essai, describing a number of ingenious kinds of photometers ... and even attempting an elaborate theory of the reflection of light from rough surfaces, although this was not successful. The third and last part of the book, however, gives a valid elementary theory of the horizontal visual range through an obscuring atmosphere, arriving at a law, usually credited to H. Koschmieder, considered to belong to the twentieth century" (DSB). Norman 286.
4o (247 x 190 mm). 7 folding plates, woodcut title vignette and tailpieces. (Some occasional very pale spotting.) Contemporary cat's-paw calf, spine gilt (some mostly minor wear, corners worn).
FIRST EDITION of Bouguer's second and expanded work on photometry, completed just before his death and published by his friend the astronomer l'Abbé Nicolas Louis de la Caille. "The Traité goes far beyond the Essai, describing a number of ingenious kinds of photometers ... and even attempting an elaborate theory of the reflection of light from rough surfaces, although this was not successful. The third and last part of the book, however, gives a valid elementary theory of the horizontal visual range through an obscuring atmosphere, arriving at a law, usually credited to H. Koschmieder, considered to belong to the twentieth century" (DSB). Norman 286.