[Rarebooks] fa: DIE AKUSTIK [ACOUSTICS] 1802 - ERNST FLORENS FRIEDRICH CHLADNI

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other 17th, 18th, & 19th-century titles, auctions ending Sunday, Sept. 30. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

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Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.



FIRST EDITION of the FIRST SCIENTIFIC WORK ON ACOUSTICS - w/ ENGRAVED PLATES

Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni: Die Akustik. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1802. FIRST EDITION. Hardcover 4to (24.5 x 21 cm) in period sheep and original[?] paper-covered boards; xxxii [but xxx], 304, [2], 305-310 pp.; engraved title-page vignette, 11 engraved plates. PMM 233b; Milestones of Science 38.
Lacking one text leaf (pp. vii-viii of the Foreword; the book appears to have been bound without it); binding with some bumping and wear to the corners, edges and spine ends, rubbing to the spine; front joint cracking but the board is secure; intermittent toning and scattered spotting to the text leaves; otherwise contents are clean and sound, securely bound. The plates in particular are very clean and crisp, free of any spotting.

Chladni, a professor of physics in Breslau, was the first to mathematically analyze sound waves, "the first to reduce the general association between vibration and pitch to a tabular basis and thus to lay the foundation of the modern science of acoustics… He spread sand on plates made of metal and glass, which were fixed in clamps. He then applied a violin bow to the edge of each plate and recorded the patterns produced thereby in the sand. These figures are still known by Chladni's name" (Printing and the Mind of Man). The 11 plates depict many of these "Chladni figures," symmetrical, often spectacular patterns in the forms of stars, circles, etc. A second edition of the work, somewhat augmented, appeared in 1817 and was reprinted in 1830.