Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light. The Second Edition, with Additions.

NEWTON, Isaac.

Editore: London: printed for W. and J. Innys, 1718

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Second edition, second issue as usual, of this seminal study which "did for light what Newton's Principia had done for gravitation, namely place it on a scientific basis" (Babson). Newton arrived at most of his innovative ideas on colour by about 1668, and Opticks was largely complete by 1692. However, when he first expressed his theories in public, they provoked hostile criticism. As a result, Newton delayed publication until his most vocal critics - especially Robert Hooke - were dead. By the mid-1710s, Opticks was established in Britain as the model for blending theoretical speculation and quantitative experimentation. Newton's aim was not to "explain the properties of light by hypotheses, but to propose and prove them by reason and experiments" (p. 1). The work's greatest achievement is showing that colour is a mathematically definable property. Newton demonstrates that white light is a mixture of infinitely varied coloured rays and that each ray is definable by the angle through which it is refracted. Other topics include colour circles, theories of the rainbow, and the phenomenon now known as Newton's rings. The textual revisions for this edition demonstrate the development of Newton's experimentation process. The first edition was published in 1704, followed by the Latin translation of 1706. This edition was the first in octavo format. It had a print run of 750 copies and, within that, two issues. The scarce first issue is dated 1717 on the title page and includes William Bowyer's name in the imprint; copies are recorded both with and without the cancel A2. The second issue (as here) has a cancel title dated 1718 and only the names of W. and J. Innys, Printers to the Royal Society, in the imprint; A2, the first two pages of the "Advertisement", is set as the cancel. Babson 134; ESTC T18663; Gray 176. Octavo (194 x 123 mm), pp. [viii], 382, [2] (publisher's advertisement). With 12 folding engraved plates, woodcut diagram on p. 330, tables in text, woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials. Contemporary panelled calf, spine with raised bands and early paper label, edges sprinkled red. Ownership label of chemist Karol J. Mysels (1914-1998) laid in; occasional tiny marginal notations, in contemporary ink to title page and p. 371 and in later pencil to pp. 323 and 328. Extremities restored, spine label chipped and browned, boards a little splayed, contents toned and generally clean: a very good copy in an attractive period binding.

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• Titolo: Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light. The Second Edition, with Additions.
• Editore: London: printed for W. and J. Innys, 1718