WALLIS

Description

JOHANNIS WALLIS OPERA MATHEMATICA, Oxoniae, e Theatro Sheldonianio, 1695

4 parts in 3 volumes, 2º (320 x 202mm). Half-titles for each work, two different frontispiece author’s portraits in vols I and III, engraved Sheldonian device on main titles, numerous woodcut and engraved illustrations, mainly geometrical, astronomical and of machinery, including one full-page and 2 folding, a few printed music sheets, some Arabic, Hebrew and Greek types.  wide margins.

Comprehensive and accurate edition of the writings of John Wallis, Saville professor at Oxford and early member of the Royal Society. Wallis is credited with the invention of the number line as well as the symbol of infinity and, partially, with the discovery of infinitesimal numbers. He also contributed significantly to the progress of cryptography, calculus, algebra, geometry, trigonometry and physics. The opera includes his mathematical treatises and scholarly correspondence, along with some remarkable critical editions of Ancient Greek works on harmony, music and geometry, including those of Ptolemy, Porphyry and Archimedes, with English translation. Part IV in vol. III gathers Wallis’s essays on English and Latin grammar and some exegetical commentaries.

Babson 184 ; Brunet 1406 (‘collection rechercheé, et aujourd’hui assez rare’) ; ESTC R219938 ; Graesse VII 413 ; Wing W 596-597A.