NEWTON, Isaac. Optice: sive de reflexionibus, refractionibus, inflexionibus & coloribus lucis libri tres, translated by Samuel Clarke, London: S. Smith & B. Walford, 1706, 4°, FIRST LATIN EDITION, 19 folding engraved plates (title lightly soiled, 3C2 with deep clean tear, occasional light marginal soiling to text and plates, a few old annotations and a few words scored), contemporary calf (front cover detached, worn). [Babson 137; Norman 1589; Wallis 179]

Details

NEWTON, Isaac. Optice: sive de reflexionibus, refractionibus, inflexionibus & coloribus lucis libri tres, translated by Samuel Clarke, London: S. Smith & B. Walford, 1706, 4°, FIRST LATIN EDITION, 19 folding engraved plates (title lightly soiled, 3C2 with deep clean tear, occasional light marginal soiling to text and plates, a few old annotations and a few words scored), contemporary calf (front cover detached, worn). [Babson 137; Norman 1589; Wallis 179]

Lot Essay

Norman: "In the Latin edition Newton added seven new "Queries" to the sixteen already published in the English edition, as well as a two-page preface noting his corrections of the text. It was in the added queries (nos. 17-23 in the Latin edition; 25-31 in the later editions) that Newton took a strong stand in favor of the corpuscular theory of light, pointing out the difficulties posed by a theory of waves in an ethereal medium ... The Latin edition, like the first in English, ends with the two papers in which Newton attempted to prove his priority over Leibniz in the invention of the calculus."

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