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Lot 70
A.A. MICHELSON'S COPY OF MAXWELL'S TREATISE. MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK. 1831-1879; and ALBERT A. MICHELSON. 1852-1931. A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881.
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A.A. MICHELSON'S COPY OF MAXWELL'S TREATISE.
MAXWELL, JAMES CLERK. 1831-1879; and ALBERT A. MICHELSON. 1852-1931. A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1881.
2 volumes. 8vo. Publisher's brick red cloth, titled in gilt, covers stamped in blind, small tear to spine, and minor waterstaining to rear of volume 2.
Provenance: Albert A. Michelson (ink inscription to half-title from his wife, "Margaret, Christmas 1883"); Francis Pease (presentation bookplate, "Ex-libris Albert A. Michelson / Presented to Dr. F.G. Pease / by Edna Stanton Michelson / 1931," Michelson's second wife; Library of the Mount Wilson Observatory (presentation bookplate inscribed "Francis G. Pease," library blindstamp and shelf number).
"From a long view of the history of mankind — seen from, say, ten thousand years from now - there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics." – Feynman, Lectures on Physics, II, (1964).
AN IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY OF MAXWELL'S GROUNDBREAKING TREATISE ON ELECTRICITY AND ELECTROMAGNETISM, BELONGING TO ALBERT A. MICHELSON, whose 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment would finally disprove Maxwell's conception of the aether. Maxwell's discovery of the relationship between electricity and magnetism, and his expression of those fields in his famous equations, revolutionized physics and laid the groundwork for Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Despite the brilliance of his work, he still clung to the idea (along with the rest of the 19th-century scientific world) that the fields must exist in a substance, dubbed the "aether."
In 1881, the same year that Maxwell's second edition of the Treatise appeared, Michelson, acting in response to an 1879 letter from Maxwell which he had read in Nature, performed his first experiment to determine the velocity of the earth in respect to a stationary aether. His experiments unexpectedly produced a null result. Colleagues pointed out that his apparatus was not accurate enough to account for experimental errors. In 1885, in tandem with Edward Morley, Michelson took up the experiment again. Despite superior resources and the most accurate instruments, the Michelson-Morley experiment again produced a null result, suggesting a problem with the long-held belief in the luminiferous aether. The scientific community struggled to incorporate the unexpected negative result, which led to novel approaches to the nature of light, ultimately resolved by Einstein 1905 assertion of light as a universal constant, and finally his theory of relativity.
In 1907, Michelson became the first American to win a Nobel Prize in Science. This copy of Maxwell's transformational work was a gift from his first wife Margaret given in 1883, two years before his association with Morley and the rekindling of his experiment. He kept the book until his death, after which his second wife presented the book to his friend and colleague at the Mount Wilson Observatory, Francis G. Pease. A fantastic association copy of one of the most important works of 19th century science connecting the mechanical physics of Newton to the theoretical physics of Einstein.
2 volumes. 8vo. Publisher's brick red cloth, titled in gilt, covers stamped in blind, small tear to spine, and minor waterstaining to rear of volume 2.
Provenance: Albert A. Michelson (ink inscription to half-title from his wife, "Margaret, Christmas 1883"); Francis Pease (presentation bookplate, "Ex-libris Albert A. Michelson / Presented to Dr. F.G. Pease / by Edna Stanton Michelson / 1931," Michelson's second wife; Library of the Mount Wilson Observatory (presentation bookplate inscribed "Francis G. Pease," library blindstamp and shelf number).
"From a long view of the history of mankind — seen from, say, ten thousand years from now - there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwell's discovery of the laws of electrodynamics." – Feynman, Lectures on Physics, II, (1964).
AN IMPORTANT ASSOCIATION COPY OF MAXWELL'S GROUNDBREAKING TREATISE ON ELECTRICITY AND ELECTROMAGNETISM, BELONGING TO ALBERT A. MICHELSON, whose 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment would finally disprove Maxwell's conception of the aether. Maxwell's discovery of the relationship between electricity and magnetism, and his expression of those fields in his famous equations, revolutionized physics and laid the groundwork for Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Despite the brilliance of his work, he still clung to the idea (along with the rest of the 19th-century scientific world) that the fields must exist in a substance, dubbed the "aether."
In 1881, the same year that Maxwell's second edition of the Treatise appeared, Michelson, acting in response to an 1879 letter from Maxwell which he had read in Nature, performed his first experiment to determine the velocity of the earth in respect to a stationary aether. His experiments unexpectedly produced a null result. Colleagues pointed out that his apparatus was not accurate enough to account for experimental errors. In 1885, in tandem with Edward Morley, Michelson took up the experiment again. Despite superior resources and the most accurate instruments, the Michelson-Morley experiment again produced a null result, suggesting a problem with the long-held belief in the luminiferous aether. The scientific community struggled to incorporate the unexpected negative result, which led to novel approaches to the nature of light, ultimately resolved by Einstein 1905 assertion of light as a universal constant, and finally his theory of relativity.
In 1907, Michelson became the first American to win a Nobel Prize in Science. This copy of Maxwell's transformational work was a gift from his first wife Margaret given in 1883, two years before his association with Morley and the rekindling of his experiment. He kept the book until his death, after which his second wife presented the book to his friend and colleague at the Mount Wilson Observatory, Francis G. Pease. A fantastic association copy of one of the most important works of 19th century science connecting the mechanical physics of Newton to the theoretical physics of Einstein.