A MASTERPIECE OF ANALYSIS

LA GRANGE (LAGRANGE), JOSEPH LOUIS.

Sur L'Integration des Equations à differences partielle du premier ordre.

(Berlin, C.F. Voss, 1774). 4to. Uncut with wide margins, without wrappers as issued in "Nouveaux Memoires de L'Academie Royales des Sciences et Belles- Lettres", Année MDCCLXXII, pp. 353-372.

First edition of a work which is a breakthrough in the theory of "First Order Partial Differential Equations", generalizing the method of variation of parameters for solving differential equations. " The oldest theory of integration of partial differential equations of the first order are due to Lagrange; it is based on the fundamental fact that the most general solution of such differential equations can be calculated with the help of differentiations and eliminations if a complete integral of the differential equationn is known" - "This problem (of partial differential equations) had only been lightly touched on by Clairaut, Euler, d'Alembert, and Condorcet. Lagrange wrote: "Finally I have just read a memoir that Mr de Laplace presented recently.....This reading aweakened old ideas that I had on the same subject and resulted in the following investigations...(which constitute) a new and complete theory." Laplace wrote on 3 February 1778 that he considered Lagrange's essay "a masterpiece of analysis, by the importence of the subject, by the beauty of method, and by the elegant manner in which it is represented." (DSB). - Parkinson, Breakthroughs 1774 M.

Order-nr.: 39049