GAUSS, C.F. (CARL FRIEDRICH). - "HIS GREATEST WORK" ?

Dioptrische Untersuchungen.

Göttingen, Dieterischen Buchhandlung, 1841. 4to. Uncut in orig. blank stiff blue wrappers. (2),34,(2- errata leaf) pp. Wide-margined. A few mild brownspots in margins. otherwise a clean and fine copy.

First edition of the peak of "Gaussian dioptrics", Gauss' greatest achievement in the field of optics, which has been called "HIS GREATEST WORK". He gives the data on the construction of the image when the principal points and foci of the system are given, and finally formulas for a simple lens of nonvanishing thickness are given.

"In the same year he finished Dioptrische Untersuchungen (1841), in which he analyzed the path of light through a system of lenses and showed, among other things, that any system is equivalent to a properly chosen single lens. Although Gauss said that he had possessed the theory forty years before and considered it too elementary to publish, it has been labeled his greatest work by one of his scientific biographers (Clemens Schäfer. in Werke, XI, pt. 2, sec. 2, 189 ff.). In any case, it was his last significant scientific contribution." (DSB).

Order-nr.: 50314