Item ID: 3373 Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet. Georg Simon OHM.

The Fundamental Law of Electric Circuits;

Gauss’s Copy

Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet.

One folding engraved plate. iv, 245 pp. (lacking the errata leaf & leaf of ads). 8vo, cont. grey paste-paper boards (lower joint with short split at head & foot). Berlin: T.H. Riemann, 1827.

First edition, and a splendid association copy, of this pioneering work which contains one of the most important discoveries in electrical science — “Ohm’s law” — the basis of the present system of electrical measurement. Ohm discovered the unit of resistance in an electrical current. This copy belonged to the “Prince of Mathematicians” — Carl Friedrich Gauss — and has the “Gauss-Bibliothek” stamp on the title. It is quite exciting to be able to link two of the greatest 19th-century scientists through an important book like this.

“In the field of electrical measurement Ohm was the great pioneer…Ohm’s great contribution — ‘The Galvanic Chain Mathematically Calculated’ — was to measure the rate of current flow and the effects of resistance on the current. ‘Ohm’s law’ — that the resistance of a given conductor is a constant independent of the voltage applied or the current flowing — was arrived at theoretically by analogy with Fourier’s heat measurements (1800-14).”–Printing & the Mind of Man 289.

It is known that the publisher was forced to pulp most of the copies of this book due to lack of sales.

A very fine and fresh copy. Lacking the errata leaf (it clearly was never bound-in) and, as usual, the leaf of ads. With the stamp of the Royal Observatory at Göttingen on free front endpaper (with release stamp facing on the front paste-down endpaper) and title.

❧ Dibner, Heralds of Science, 63. Horblit 81. Sparrow, Milestones of Science, 154. Wheeler Gift Cat. 835.

Price: $27,500.00

Item ID: 3373

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