Essai d’optique sur la gradation de la lumiere

by Pierre Bouguer

$48,500 · Offered by Sophia Rare Books

First edition

Paris: Claude Jombert, 1729. First edition of the founding work of photometry, a superb large-paper copy lavishly bound for the dedicatee, the Comte de Maurepas, Louis XV’s Minister of the Marine. “ Bouguer’s interest in the measurement of light dates from about 1721, when J. J. d’Ortous de Mairan proposed a problem that necessitated a knowledge of the relative amount of light from the sun at two

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