Isaac Newton und seine Physikalischen Principien

Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1895. FIRST EDITION. Complete with half-title and 25 text diagrams. Original cloth-backed marbled boards; in excellent condition. From the libraries of Stillman Drake and E.N. Da C. Andrade, with their bookplates. First edition and surprisingly quite scarce. OCLC locates numerous modern reprinted versions with a very few original editions such as our copy. The focus of the book is Newton’s work in optics. The author provides a detailed description of the state of physical optics up to the point when Newton’s interest propelled him into conducting research in the field. He further explains the underlying concepts of the Opticks, including the various theories in opposition to those taken by Newton, and finally discusses Newton’s transition from work in optics to celestial mechanics.

Rosenberger (1845-1899) was a German historian of science. He studied math and science and taught school in Frankfurt. He became famous for his history of physics and this work on the physical thinking of Isaac Newton.

According to Babson, Rosenberger’s work is “the best account in German of Newton’s discoveries.” Bernard Cohen considers this as one of the major surveys of the development of physics “to which historians must refer.”

Babson, 105; Cohen, Franklin and Newton,1956, p. 114; Westfall, Never at Rest, 1980 (“unsurpassed in Newton biography”).