ON THE TRANSIT OF VENUS 1769

LA GRANGE (LAGRANGE), JOSEPH LOUIS.

Mémoire sur le Passage de Vénus du 3 Juin 1769.

(Berlin, Haude et Spener, 1768). 4to. Without wrappers as extracted from "Memoires de l'Academie Royale des Sciences et Belles-Lettres", tome XXII, pp. 265-333 and 2 foled engraved plates.

First edition. "During his period in Berlin he produced an extraordinary series of papers on astronomy, on general dynamics, and on a variety of subjects in pure mathematics. Several of the most importent of the astronomical papers were sent to Paris and obtained prizes offred by the Academy."(Arthur Berry). "Lagrange's work in Berlin far surpassed the classical aspects of classical mechanics. Soon after his arrival he presented "Memoire sur la Passage de Venus du 3 Juin 1769", an occasional work that disconcerted the professional astronomers and contained the first somewhat extended example of an elementary astronomical problem solved by the method of three rectangular coordinates." (DSB). The analyses of this Venus transit was meant to provided data for estimating the sun-earth distance as the Venus went across the disk of the sun.

Order-nr.: 39069