JACOBI, C.G.J. - KINETICS OF THE TOP.

Sur la rotation d'un corps.

(Berlin, Georg Reimer, 1850). 4to. Later marbled wrappers. In "Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik, 39. Band, 24 Heft. Jacobi's paper takes up the whole issue . pp. 293-350.

First printing of main paper in Rigic Body Dynamics, where Jacobi studied the motion of a top and derived the analytic solution for the motion of a free body and defined the so-called "Jacobi analytic functions". The problem was first treated by Leonhard Euler in 1758 in the case where the fixed point is the centre of gravity of the top, but it was Jacobi who first solved the problem completely, making use of elliptic functions which he himself had introduced.

Order-nr.: 46889