Beschreibung:

EULER, Leonhard (1707-1783). Dioptricae pars prima ... De explicatione principorum [Pars secunda ... De constructione telescopiorum dioptricorum. Pars tertia ... De constructione microscopiorum]. St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1769-1771. First edition of Euler’s important work on optics, a fine uncut set in contemporary decorated boards. In his Dioptricae, Euler rejects Newton's corpuscular theory in favour of a wave theory of light. ‘Newton’s work had such authority that for more than thirty years no one thought of reviewing his conclusions. Physicists and mathematicians held to the opinion that it was impossible to make an achromatic lens by associating two different substances… [Euler] began at the point where Newton left off, and produced a lens-combination formed of two concave lenses whose intervening space was filled with water. Studying refraction in each medium and for each colour he showed that it was possible to correct colour dispersion and gave the corresponding formulae’ (Dumas, Scientific Instruments of the 17th and 18th Century and their Makers, pp. 153-4). The first part of the Dioptricae considers the properties of lenses; the second and third parts discuss the construction of the telescope and the microscope. DSB, IV, p.482; Poggendorf I, 690. 3 volumes, quarto (280 x 221mm). Erratum leaf in vol. III. 6 engraved folding tables. Contemporary green paper-backed colour-printed decorative paper (‘a Orleans chez Perdoux. No 398’) over boards, uncut (faint rubbing). Provenance: unidentified small stamp in red on verso of titles.