MAUPERTUIS, PIERRE LOUIS MOREAU de.

Loi du Repos des Corps. (20 Février 1740).

Paris, L'Imprimerie Royale, 1742.

4to. Uncut in contemp. blue blank covers. Issued in "Historie de L'Academie Royale des Sciences. Paris." Année 1740, pp. 170-176 and 1 engraved plate. With titlepage to the whole volume.

First edition of this important paper - Laws of Bodies at Rest - in which Maupertuis showed that a system of bodies at rest tend to reach a position in which any change would create the smallest possible change in a quantity that he argued could be assimilated to action. This is the forerunner of his "Principle of least Action".

Order-nr.: 38731