[Rarebooks] fa: GEORGE BIDDELL AIRY on Telescopes, Microscopes, Achromatic Eyepieces etc. 1824

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other antiquarian science & mathematics, auction ending Sunday, September 29. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/m3opbap

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


George Biddell Airy: On the Principles and Construction of the Achromatic Eye-Pieces of Telescopes, and on the Achromatism of Microscopes. 1824. [BOUND WITH:] On the Spherical Aberration of the Eye-pieces of Telescopes. 1827. [BOUND WITH:] On a peculiar Defect in the Eye, and a mode of correcting it. 1825. [Cambridge: Printed at the University Press, 1827-1830.] Three separate papers, extracted from broken volumes of the Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophical Society and bound in blue french wraps; 4to (28 x 22 cm); p. 227-252, [2]; 1-63; 267-271 (117 pp. total), plus two leaves of plates.

Three early papers by the long-lived George Biddell Airy (1801- 1892), one of the giants of nineteenth-century astronomy, who served as Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. The Martian crater Airy is named for him. "His many achievements include work on planetary orbits, measuring the mean density of the Earth, a method of solution of two-dimensional problems in solid mechanics and, in his role as Astronomer Royal, establishing Greenwich as the location of the prime meridian. His reputation has been tarnished by allegations that, through his inaction, Britain lost the opportunity of priority in the discovery of Neptune" (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition). Mild toning to the leaves with some darkening to the top edges, light spotting to the plates, otherwise clean and sound and firmly bound in fresh modern wraps.