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Auction archive: Lot number 481

KEPLER, JOHANNES. 1571-1630.

Estimate
US$100,000 - US$150,000
Price realised:
n. a.
Auction archive: Lot number 481

KEPLER, JOHANNES. 1571-1630.

Estimate
US$100,000 - US$150,000
Price realised:
n. a.
Beschreibung:

Harmonices mundi libri V. Linz: Johann Planck for Gottfried Tampach, 1619. [BOUND WITH:] Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum, continens Mysterium Cosmographicum de admirabili proportione orbium coelestium. [AND:] Pro suo opere Harmonices Mundi Apologia. Frankfurt: Erasmus Kempfer for Gottfried Tampach, 1621-1622. 3 works in one volume, folio (Harmonices 325 x 205 mm; Prodromus 345 x 210 mm), all ENTIRELY UNTRIMMED with deckled edges; Harmonices: general title in second state (with typographic ornament and with the text beginning "Accessit nunc..."), with the dedication to King James of England *2r-*4r (later suppressed by Kepler and absent from some copies), 5 sectional titles, errata leaf at end; 6 engraved plates, numerous woodcut illustrations and diagrams in text, woodcut musical notation in Book III; stamp removed from title and final leaf, minor marginal repair to a couple of leaves, light even browning to the paper. Prodromus Dissertationum and Pro suo opere Harmonices: with separate dated title page: one engraved folding plate, 4 woodcut plates and woodcut diagram; closed marginal tear to F1, engraved folding plate with paper repairs to verso and mounted on a stub, light even browning to the paper, bound without final blank. The three works bound together, vellum-backed decorative boards. Provenance: evidence of removed stamps from title and final leaf of first work; washed 17th-century ink presentation inscription on final verso of last work, woodcut label. "Before Kepler, all men were blind. Kepler had one eye, Newton had two." -Voltaire A RARE UNCUT COPY OF KEPLER'S MAGNUM OPUS, PRONOUNCING HIS THIRD LAW OF PLANETARY MOTION, A3= P2, ONE OF THE FOUNDATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF EARLY MODERN SCIENCE. THE CULMINATION OF A LIFELONG EFFORT TO DISCERN THE PATTERN OF THE UNIVERSE, Kepler's Harmonices Mundiis a sweeping meditation on mathematics, music, and the stars. Fueled by an unshakeable Pythagorean conviction that the universe was constructed on harmonic principles, the work begins with purely mathematical considerations and advances upwards through musical theory to the Heavens -- ultimately reaching its crescendo in the first public pronouncement of Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion: the square of the period of revolution of a planet about the sun is proportional to the cube of the mean distance of the planet from the sun, A3= P2. A scientific masterwork, Harmonices Mundi represents a critical victory for scientific thought and method. Acknowledged as one of the most important and elegant equations in all of science, Kepler's Third Law was the first major modern scientific law deduced from empirical data. Many scholars consider the "Keplerian revolution" to be the true beginning of modern science. Johannes Kepler is one of the primary "giants" on whose shoulders Newton stood. Kepler's Third Law was in fact the mathematical springboard for Isaac Newton's discovery and articulation of the generalized laws of motion and gravity. Though Kepler had a "presentiment" of gravity -- though he believed that planetary motion was determined by a real energy emanating from the Sun -- Kepler himself was unable to explain the actual force at work. This task was left to Newton, who addresses Kepler's laws at multiple places within the Principia. In the course of developing his own theory, Newton generalized Kepler's law to apply to any two bodies orbiting a common center of mass and he further showed that it was derivable from his own three laws of Motion and his law of universal gravitation. Kepler's grand synthesis of harmonic ratios in Harmonices Mundi concludes the research program he had begun in his first published book, Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596). "The first unabashedly Copernican treatise since De Revolutionibus itself," the Mysterium "established [Kepler] as the first and until Descartes the only, scientist to demand physical explanations for celestial phenomena" (DSB). In Harmonices, Kepler writes, "Again, ther

Auction archive: Lot number 481
Auction:
Datum:
5 Dec 2018
Auction house:
Bonhams London
New York 580 Madison Avenue New York NY 10022 Tel: +1 212 644 9001 Fax : +1 212 644 9009 info.us@bonhams.com
Beschreibung:

Harmonices mundi libri V. Linz: Johann Planck for Gottfried Tampach, 1619. [BOUND WITH:] Prodromus Dissertationum Cosmographicarum, continens Mysterium Cosmographicum de admirabili proportione orbium coelestium. [AND:] Pro suo opere Harmonices Mundi Apologia. Frankfurt: Erasmus Kempfer for Gottfried Tampach, 1621-1622. 3 works in one volume, folio (Harmonices 325 x 205 mm; Prodromus 345 x 210 mm), all ENTIRELY UNTRIMMED with deckled edges; Harmonices: general title in second state (with typographic ornament and with the text beginning "Accessit nunc..."), with the dedication to King James of England *2r-*4r (later suppressed by Kepler and absent from some copies), 5 sectional titles, errata leaf at end; 6 engraved plates, numerous woodcut illustrations and diagrams in text, woodcut musical notation in Book III; stamp removed from title and final leaf, minor marginal repair to a couple of leaves, light even browning to the paper. Prodromus Dissertationum and Pro suo opere Harmonices: with separate dated title page: one engraved folding plate, 4 woodcut plates and woodcut diagram; closed marginal tear to F1, engraved folding plate with paper repairs to verso and mounted on a stub, light even browning to the paper, bound without final blank. The three works bound together, vellum-backed decorative boards. Provenance: evidence of removed stamps from title and final leaf of first work; washed 17th-century ink presentation inscription on final verso of last work, woodcut label. "Before Kepler, all men were blind. Kepler had one eye, Newton had two." -Voltaire A RARE UNCUT COPY OF KEPLER'S MAGNUM OPUS, PRONOUNCING HIS THIRD LAW OF PLANETARY MOTION, A3= P2, ONE OF THE FOUNDATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS OF EARLY MODERN SCIENCE. THE CULMINATION OF A LIFELONG EFFORT TO DISCERN THE PATTERN OF THE UNIVERSE, Kepler's Harmonices Mundiis a sweeping meditation on mathematics, music, and the stars. Fueled by an unshakeable Pythagorean conviction that the universe was constructed on harmonic principles, the work begins with purely mathematical considerations and advances upwards through musical theory to the Heavens -- ultimately reaching its crescendo in the first public pronouncement of Kepler's Third Law of Planetary Motion: the square of the period of revolution of a planet about the sun is proportional to the cube of the mean distance of the planet from the sun, A3= P2. A scientific masterwork, Harmonices Mundi represents a critical victory for scientific thought and method. Acknowledged as one of the most important and elegant equations in all of science, Kepler's Third Law was the first major modern scientific law deduced from empirical data. Many scholars consider the "Keplerian revolution" to be the true beginning of modern science. Johannes Kepler is one of the primary "giants" on whose shoulders Newton stood. Kepler's Third Law was in fact the mathematical springboard for Isaac Newton's discovery and articulation of the generalized laws of motion and gravity. Though Kepler had a "presentiment" of gravity -- though he believed that planetary motion was determined by a real energy emanating from the Sun -- Kepler himself was unable to explain the actual force at work. This task was left to Newton, who addresses Kepler's laws at multiple places within the Principia. In the course of developing his own theory, Newton generalized Kepler's law to apply to any two bodies orbiting a common center of mass and he further showed that it was derivable from his own three laws of Motion and his law of universal gravitation. Kepler's grand synthesis of harmonic ratios in Harmonices Mundi concludes the research program he had begun in his first published book, Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596). "The first unabashedly Copernican treatise since De Revolutionibus itself," the Mysterium "established [Kepler] as the first and until Descartes the only, scientist to demand physical explanations for celestial phenomena" (DSB). In Harmonices, Kepler writes, "Again, ther

Auction archive: Lot number 481
Auction:
Datum:
5 Dec 2018
Auction house:
Bonhams London
New York 580 Madison Avenue New York NY 10022 Tel: +1 212 644 9001 Fax : +1 212 644 9009 info.us@bonhams.com
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