Methodus Inveniendi Lineas Curvas Maximi Minimive proprietate gaudentes, sive Solutio Problematis Isoperimetrici Latissimo sensu accepti...
Engraved vignette on title & five folding engraved plates. Title in red & black. 1 p.l., 322 pp., 1 leaf of instructions to binder. Large 4to, cont. mottled calf (foot of upper joint carefully repaired), spine richly gilt, red morocco lettering piece on spine. Lausanne & Geneva: M.M. Bousquet, 1744.
First edition of the work which created the calculus of variations. This book, which displayed “an amount of mathematical genius seldom rivalled, contained his researches on the calculus of variation to the invention of which Euler was led by the study of the researches of Johann and Jakob Bernoulli…The study... More