Isaac Newton, Opticks, or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light ... . London: Printed for Sam. Smith, and Benj. Walford, 1704.
Image 35 of 50
1st edition.
This book, essentially a collection of papers describing experiments that Newton had conducted at Cambridge over several decades in the late seventeenth century, is the first work that delineates the color spectrum in light. Of greater importance, this edition also includes two treatises on linear equations and fluxions (absent from subsequent editions), which represent Newton's first printed papers on mathematics and staked his claim to mathematical discoveries that were being asserted by Leibnitz. Notably, Newton published this work in English (although the mathematical treatises are in Latin), a sign that Latin was no longer the absolute, universal language of scientific communication in Europe.
Gift: Thomas Wallcut.