L'Optique en édition originale, exemplaire de premier tirage,
avant le nom de l'auteur et avec les deux traités latins.

Newton , Sir Isaac.
Opticks : or, a Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours of Light. Also two treatises of the species and magnitude of Curvilinear Figures.
London, printed for Sam Smith and Benj. Walford, 1704.
In-4 de (1) f.bl., (2) ff. pour le titre et l'avertissement, 144 pp., 211 pp., (1) p. d'errata, (1) f.bl., 19 planches dépliantes. Titre imprimé en rouge et noir. Corrections manuscrites dans le texte. Relié en plein veau havane mosaïqué, dos à nerfs refait, tranches jaspées. Reliure anglaise de l'époque. 240 x 186 mm.

Edition originale, exemplaire de premier tirage, avant le nom de l'auteur et avec les deux traités latins.

Osler, Bilbiotheca Osleriana, a catalogue , 1027 ; Gray, A Bibliography of the Works of Sir Isaac Newton , 174; Bubson 132; Norman 1588; PMM 172; Sparrow 150.

L' Opticks forme avec les Principia le second pilier de l'ouvre de Newton . Il offre le résultat des recherches sur la structure de la lumière et de la matière. Pour prendre date dans la controverse qui l'oppose à Leibniz, il livre également ses travaux mathématiques concernant le calcul de fluxions, fondement du calcul différentiel.

Newton explique dans l'Avertissement : «  In a Letter written to Mr. Leibnitz in the year 1676 and published by Dr. Wallis, I mentioned a Method by which I had found some general Theorems about squaring Curvilinear Figures, or comparing them with the Conic Sections, or other the simplest Figures with which they may be compared. And some years ago I lent out a Manuscript containing such Theorems, and having since met with some things copied out of it, I have on this Occasion made it publick [.] And I have joined with it another small Tract concerning the Curvilinear Figures of the Second Kind, which was also written many years ago ".

" The core of his work was the observation that the spectrum of colours (formed when a ray of light shines through a glass prism) is stretched along its axis, together with his experimental proof that rays of different colours are refracted to different extents. This causes the stretching, or dispersion, of the spectrum.

All previous philosophers and mathematicians had been sure that white light is pure and simple, regarding colours as modifications or qualifications of the white. Newton showed experimentally that the opposite is true: there are pure coloured rays which cannot be analysed by refraction, such as the green of the spectrum; just as there are coloured rays which can be analysed, such as the green formed by mixing blue and yellow light. Natural white light, far from being simple, is a compound of many pure elementary colours which can be separated and recompounded at will".

" Since the lenses of optical instruments analyse light into colours of different dispersions, Newton believed (wrongly) that the coloration of their images was beyond remedy; hence he proposed, and made in 1668, a form of telescope magnifying by reflection. (All the largest telescopes of today are reflectors). This he presented to the royal Society in 1671, shortly afterwards communicating a famous letter (published in the Philosophical Transactions for March 1671/2) in which he set out his new view of light and the experiments justifying it ". (P.M.M.).

Interessant exemplaire provenant de la bibliothèque r. perceval avec ex libris manuscrit a la date de 1775 sur le titre, et plusieurs corrections manuscrites faites à la plume pendant l'impression.

First edition, first issue, before the author's name.

The " Opticks " and the " Principia " are the 2 major works by Newton. In the " Opticks " the author presents the results of his research on the structure of light and matter.
An interesting copy coming from R. Perceval' s collection with the handwritten ex-libris dated 1775 on the title-page.