Opticks: Or, a treatise of the reflextions, refractions, inflextions and colours of light.
Newton, Isaac.
Publisher Information: London: Sam. Smith and Benj. Walford, 1704. 
Optics and Color Theory
Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727). Opticks. . . . 4to. [4], 144, 211, [1]pp. 19 engraved plates. London: printed for Sam. Smith, and Benjamin Walford, 1704. 247 x 191 mm. Paneled calf, gilt spine c. 1704, spine repaired, endpapers renewed (endpaper sheets watermarked with date 1802). Insignificant worming in gutter margin of last few leaves, but a fine, clean copy, preserved in a quarter morocco drop-back box.
First Edition of the most famous book on optics ever written in the English language; First Issue, without Newton's name on the title and with the two additional mathematical treatises. The Opticks expounds the corpuscular theory of light developed by Newton, which was the dominant theory until modern times when it was combined with the wave theory developed by Newton's contemporary Huygens. The Opticks also contains a full explanation for the rainbow, an explanation of "Newton's rings," and consideration of double refraction in Iceland spar. In color theory, the Opticks provides the starting point for modern concepts. Newton proved experimentally that all colors are contained in white light and devised the first organized color circle to show his concept of seven primary colors. The color circle, illustrated in fig. 11, pl. 3, Bk. 1, pt. 2, has been made use of in virtually all later treatises on color theory.
Unlike most of Newton's works, Opticks was originally published in English, with the Latin version following in 1706. As an appendix to the Opticks are two mathematical treatises in Latin which Newton issued in response to Leibniz relative to their dispute over priority in the invention of the calculus. These are Newton's first published works in mathematics. Boyer, The Rainbow (1959) 233-68. Birren, History of Color in Painting (1965) 21ff., 139. Horblit 79b. Dibner 148. Printing and the Mind of Man 172. Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Norman 1588. Babson 132.
Book Id: 41426
Price: $60,000.00