Search Results: Authors starting with K from Atticus Rare Books

New York: AAAS, 2008. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF THE FIRST PAPER TO SHOW & DESCRIBE THE OPTICAL IMAGING OF AN EXTRASOLAR PLANET, a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut . The work is a "landmark [discovery], as it reports the first definitive, direct imaging of exoplanets: the planets that orbit distant stars," (Alberts, Science editor-in-chief on Kalas Berkeley website). "The image of Fomalhaut, its visually striking belt of comet dust and its planet has become an iconic image of a planetary system" (Kalas). Fomalhaut is a bright star 25 light years from Earth and imagine was provided by the Hubble Space Telescope. Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut [which is] located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the ‘Southern Fish.' "Seeing an extrasolar planet directly was one of the last and most speculative goals of the Hubble Space Telescope when… Read More

Chicago: University of Chicago, 1922. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF THE 1st APPEARANCE IN PRINT OF THE TERM "DARK MATTER" & FIRST SUGGESTION OF ITS EXISTENCE. This paper, First Attempt at a Theory of the Arrangement and Motion of the Sidereal System, represents a culmination of Kapteyn's life work and he died shortly before its publication. In it, he uses the term dark matter to denote invisible matter the existence of which is otherwise suggested by only by gravity. He further suggests that when his theory is perfected it may be possible to determine the amount of dark matter from its gravitational effect. Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (1851-1922) was a Dutch astronomer who extensively studied the Milky Way and who discovered evidence of galactic rotation. "In the beginning of the 20th century little was known about the overall structure of the Milky Way system... One unsolved problem was the possible existence of absorbing material near the plane of the Galaxy, which distorts distance estimates of… Read More

Lancaster: American Institute of Physics, 1936. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF THE IMPORTANT ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FIRST NEAR PRECISION VALUE FOR THE NUCLEAR MAGNETIC MOMENT. To establish the sign of nuclear moments determined by non-adiabatic transition, Rabi and his team determined the magnetic moment of the deuteron by sending through it a beam of neutral deuterium atoms from a Wood discharge tube. In their own words: "The magnitudes of the nuclear moments of the proton and the deuteron are remeasured by the method of atomic beams. The new experimental arrangement is such that the evaluation of the results does not require any information with regard to the velocity distribution of the atoms in the beam. Detection is made objective by the use of a Stern-Pirani detector" (Kellogg, Rabi, and Zacharias, Phys Rev 50, 472). Rabi and his team "reported the proton's magnetic moment to be in the range +2.70 +3.00 nuclear magnetons, and the deuteron's magnetic moment as between +.82 and… Read More

FIRST EDITION (FULL VOLUME 52) OF THE PHYSICAL REVIEW HOUSING 6 IMPORTANT PHYSICS PAPERS. In "Field Theory of Nuclear Interaction," Nicholas Kemmer proposes the first of two alternative currents required for electroweak synthesis. In "Visible Radiation Produced by Electrons," Pavel Cherenkov describes the theory of Cherenkov radiation, the effect wherein light emitted by a transparent medium when charged particles pass through it at a speed greater than the speed of light in the medium. "Cherenkov observed the emission of blue light from a bottle of water subjected to radioactive bombardment. This phenomenon, associated with charged atomic particles moving at velocities greater than the speed of light in the local medium, proved to be of great importance in subsequent experimental work in nuclear physics, and for the study of cosmic rays" (Wikipedia). In "On the Mathematical Description of Light Nuclei by the Method of Resonating Group Structure" contains Wheeler's important introduction of the… Read More

1st Edition. Two volume first edition of a milestone in the history of structural biology, the first protein structure ever discovered. Kendrew's papers present the first solution of the three-dimensional molecular structure of a protein. "Kendrew's discovery was one of the greatest landmarks in the history of molecular biology" (Jeremy Norman History of Science). Along with his colleague Max Perutz, Kendrew received the 1952 Nobel Prize for this work. Two discoveries laid the foundation for Kendrew's work: "first, that the positions of atoms in a crystallized substance could be determined from X-rays passing through, and scattered by, the crystal; second, that the approach could be applied to very simple biological molecules (Garwin, Century of Nature, 88). The goal of Kendrew's team, composed mostly of physicists, was to understand how a biological molecule such as a protein works, beginning with how it is built. The papers they produced (both offered here) are "the outcome of a truly Herculean… Read More

Berlin: Julius Springer. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST MATHEMATICALLY CORRECT FORMULATION OF THE HEISENBERG UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE. In quantum mechanics, "the uncertainty principle is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position x and momentum p, can be known simultaneously. The more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be known and vice versa. In "Zur quantenmechanik einfacher bewegungstypen," or "Quantum mechanics of simple types of motion, Earle Kennard correctly derived the formula for uncertainty of position and momentum only a few months after Heisenberg stated his principle. While on a sabbatical from Cornell and at the University of Gottingen in 1926, Kennard had learned the new quantum mechanics directly from Heisenberg and Jordan. With that knowledge and his deep understanding of Heisenberg's work,… Read More

Lancaster: American Institute of Physics, 1932. 1st Edition. BOUND FIRST EDITION OF AN IMPORTANT EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF THE LORENZ-EINSTEIN TRANSFORMATIONS DESIGNED TO DEMONSTRATE MOTION-INDUCED TIME DILATION. Kennedy and Thorndike "considered the mathematical treatment originally applied to the Michelson-Morley experiment to see if there was a way to.. discriminate between Lorentz ether theory and special relativity" (Marett, Conspiracy of Light, 2012). The primary goal of the authors was "to test the validity of the time dilation effect in the moving frame of the interferometer - as they state, ‘the theory has needed confirmation, particularly in its most revolutionary aspect; i.e., its denial of a significance for absolute time'" (ibid). "At the time of the Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887, no one was ready for the idea that physics - including the speed of light - is the same in every inertial frame of reference. According to today's standard Einstein interpretation it seems obvious that… Read More

Munich: C.H. Beck'sche, 1968. C.H. Beck'sche Munich. [xiv], 181 text, [full index], 86 reproductions of title pages. Inscribed from the bookseller Jeremy Norman to the collector Richard Green. Second and best, expanded edition. The first was issued in 1936, but this extends and includes secondary works until 1967. Tall 4to in fine condition, tightly and solidly bound. Grey boards embossed with blue. Vellum spine. Includes both original paper wrap and slipcase. Important bibliography with the definitive annotated listing of Kepler's printed works, translations, and later editions. Includes both Kepler's works and 574 secondary writings about Kepler to 1967 (Dictionary of Scientific Biography VII, 308). Perfect complete condition.

New York: American Physical Society, 1963. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION OF KERR'S LANDMARK 1963 PAPER DESCRIBING THE MATHEMATICS OF ROATATING BLACK HOLES, A WORK THAT EXACTLY SOLVED EINSTEIN'S EQUATIONS OF GENERAL RELATIVITY. Not infrequently, Kerr's achievement is described without hyperbole as the most important exact solution to any equations in physics. "In 2022, it was mathematically demonstrated that the equilibrium found by Kerr was stable and thus black holes—which were the solution to Einstein's equation of 1915—were stable" (Wikipedia). As said, researchers finally proved Kerr's black holes stable in 2022. This meant, essentially, that if shaken, they settle back into a form like the one they began with. The opposite situation — a mathematical instability — would not have proved Kerr wrong, but it "would have posed a deep conundrum to theoretical physicists and would have suggested the need to modify, at some fundamental level, Einstein's theory of gravitation" (Quanta; T. Damour,… Read More

Lancaster: American Institute of Physics, 1956. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS IN WHICH KERST REINVENTS COLLIDING BEAMS AS A METHOD OF REACHING HIGHER ENERGY & HERE PRESENTS "THE FIRST SERIOUS PROPOSAL FOR A COLLIDER" (WIKIPEDIA). Kerst proposed "a method for doubling the energy of impacts in particle accelerators by accelerating two beams of particles in opposite directions before allowing them to collide. The technique, [now] called "beam stacking", is currently used in most modern accelerators (including LHC) to accelerate beams of particles in opposite directions so they can collide. In the 1950s, many thought it "not possible to control two beams of particles circulating in opposite directions (LHC). Some "had thought of colliding beams as a way to avoid dissipating a large fraction of the energy in forward motion when a fixed target is struck by an accelerated particle... [but] the density of particles in a beam used as a target is too small by many orders of magnitude to… Read More

1861. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION and appearance in French of an 1861 landmark paper marking "the invention of Spectral Analysis and the announcement of the discovery of two new elements, Cesium and Rubidium [and eventually many more] by using the new method of spectroscopy developed by Kirchhoff and Bunsen. The spectral lines that Kirchhoff and Bunsen discovered "predicted and demonstrated that new elements, so far missing in the Periodic Table, could be found with the help of spectral analysis. The spectra of the elements would later yield most important information about the structure of the atoms and would help to explain the Periodic Table" (Brandt, The Harvest of a Century, 28). Kirchhoff and Bunsen's discoveries were heralded as "One of the most dashing advances of the human mind into the secrets of the composition of matter on earth and in cosmos"(Kedrow, Spektralanalyse, 1961). Kirchhoff and Bunsen's collaboration would change the world, not just of chemical analysis, but also of… Read More

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST MAGAZINE ABOUT THE SEARCH FOR EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENCE. Note that we separately offer a number of other SETI related items. Includes: Giuseppi Cocconi & Philip Morrison's "Searching for Interstellar Communications" WITH Philip Morrison's "Twenty Years After" WITH Frank D. Drake's "A Reminiscence of Project Ozma" WITH S. Jocelyn Bell Burnell's "Little Green Men, White Dwarfs or Pulsars?" WITH Arthur C. Clarke's "Trouble in Aquila" WITH Norman Cousins' "Rendezvous with Infinity" WITH Richard Berendzen's "Time and a Cosmic Perspective" WITH Walter Sullivan's "What If We Succeed?" Note that we separately offer a number of other SETI related items, including "Searching for Interstellar Communications" (Cocconi & Morrison in Nature 184, 1959, pp. 844-846 WITH "Interstellar and Interplanetary Communication by Optical Masers"(Schwartz & Townes) in Nature 190, 1961, pp. 205-208. CONDITION & DETAILS: Complimentary Copy with address sticker on rear. Some edgewear… Read More

Princeton: Association for Symbolic, 1959. 1st Edition. First edition, first impression in original wrappers of issue #4 of the 1959 Journal of Symbolic Logic. This, the December issue, includes important abstracts of Kripke papers received by the Journal in 1959: "Distinguished Constituents", "Semantical Analysis of Modal Logic", "The Problem of Entailment". All three papers in this listing relate to Kripke's seminal first paper on modal logic, "A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic" - a paper in which Kripke's initial intuitive idea was that a proposition is necessary if and only if it is true in all possible worlds. NOTE: We offer separately all four issues of The Journal of Symbolic Logic for this same year including "A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic." As the story goes, in 1959 and at the age of seventeen, Kripke wrote his completeness theorem in modal logic at age 17; he mailed the paper to the journal and it was sent out for comments, to, among a number of others, the head of the… Read More

New York: Journal of Philosophy, 1975. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF KRIPKE'S "FAMOUS AND HIGHLY INFLUENTIAL PAPER GREATLY [SHAPING] MOST LATER APPROACHES TO THEORIES OF TRUTH AND THE SEMANTIC PARADOXES" (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Consequences of the Semantic Paradoxes). In his 1975 article "Outline of a Theory of Truth", Kripke showed that a language can consistently contain its own truth predicate, which was deemed impossible by Alfred Tarski, a pioneer in the area of formal theories of truth. The trick involves letting truth be a partially defined property over the set of grammatically well-formed sentences in the language. Kripke showed how to do this recursively by starting from the set of expressions in a language which do not contain the truth predicate, defining a truth predicate over just that segment: this adds new sentences to the language, and truth is in turn defined for all of them. Unlike Tarski's approach, however, Kripke's lets "truth" be the union of… Read More

Princeton: Association for Symbolic Logic, 1959. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION IN PRISTINE ORIGINAL WRAPS OF SAUL KRIPKE'S SEMINAL FIRST PAPER ON MODAL LOGIC, "A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic". The paper presents Kripke's important ideas on the semantics of modal logic, or the logic of modal notions like necessity and possibility. Included are all 4 Journal issues for 1959, one of which is inclusive of abstracts of 3 other papers Kripke sent to the Journal. "Universally hailed" for this work, in this paper, Kripke both proves the formal completeness of modal logic (supplemented by first-order quantifiers and the sign of equality) and "create[s] a semantics, now called Kripke semantics" (Hurley, Logic: The Essentials, 217). Kripke semantics "is a formals semantics for non-classical logic systems... first conceived for modal logics, and later adapted to intuitionistic logic and other non-classical systems. The discovery of Kripke semantics was a breakthrough in the theory of… Read More

Princeton: Association for Symbolic Logic, 1959. 1st Edition. FULL VOLUME, BOUND FIRST EDITION OF SAUL KRIPKE'S SEMINAL FIRST PAPER ON MODAL LOGIC, "A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic". The paper presents Kripke's important ideas on the semantics of modal logic, or the logic of modal notions like necessity and possibility. Included are all 4 journal issues for 1959, one of which is inclusive of abstracts of 3 other papers Kripke sent to the Journal.  Kripke was "universally hailed" for "A Completeness Theorem in Modal Logic" (this paper) In it, he both proves the formal completeness of modal logic (supplemented by first-order quantifiers and the sign of equality) and "create[s] a semantics now called Kripke semantics" (Hurley, Logic 217). Kripke semantics "is a formals semantics for non-classical logic systems... first conceived for modal logics, and later adapted to intuitionistic logic and other non-classical systems. The discovery of Kripke semantics was a breakthrough in the theory of… Read More

Lancaster: American Physical Society, 1960. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF "KRUSKAL'S DISCOVERY OF THE FULL CLASSICAL SPACETIME STRUCTURE OF THE SIMPLEST TYPE OF BLACK HOLE IN GENERAL RELATIVITY" (Wikipedia). This work spurred a renaissance in a study of the physics of black holes. In this paper, Kruskal presents his "Kruskal coordinates" - an innovation that facilitated the mathematical study of the interior of black holes. Krukal's methodology allows the solutions of the equations of general relativity to be singular at the center of a black hole but finite in other parts -- including the event horizon. Kruskal's created a "very complete space-time diagram which allows us to represent on a plane the central regions of the Schwarzschild black hole" (Luminet, Black Holes, 168). Problematically, the Schwarzchild solution had only been able to describe "the region exterior to the horizon of the black hole" (Wikipedia). Kruskal's introduction of "a single set of coordinates that… Read More