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Lot 304

NEWTON (ISAAC)
Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, Printers to the Royal Society, 1704

25 March 2015, 11:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £23,750 inc. premium

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[NEWTON (ISAAC)]

Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, title printed in red and black, 19 folding engraved plates, second book with page 120 misnumbered 112, one plate with caption trimmed, modern vellum [Babson 132; PMM 164], 4to (240 x 185mm.), Samuel Smith and Benjamin Walford, Printers to the Royal Society, 1704

Footnotes

"Newton's Optics did for light what his Principia had done for gravitation, namely, placed it on a scientific basis" (Babson, quoting Prof. E.W. Brown of Yale University). Although Newton began writing the work in the 1670s, he delayed publishing it until after Hooke's death, to avoid repeating previous controversies he had faced. In addition to expounding Newton's theory of the colours of light, the work was also notable for containing the author's first mathematical papers in print, and for giving the first full explanation of the rainbow. Like Galileo, Newton decided to publish this text in his native vernacular rather than Latin, the language of scholarship.

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