Science. VON GUERICKE. Experimenta nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio.

GUERICKE, Otto; von. Experimenta nova (ut vocantur) Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio ...

Amsterdam, Johanned Jansson Waesberge, 1672

 

Folio. 314x195 mm. Legatura coeva in piena pelle marrone, dorso a sei scomparti con titolo in oro su tassello. Pagine 16 non numerate, inclusi Antiporta figurata e Frontespizio, 244, [5, con Errata in fine], 1 bianca. 21 tavole incise in rame nel testo, molte a piena pagina, e due tavole fuori testo su doppia pagina, manca il ritratto. La tavola n. XVIII è ripetuta due volte, come corretto. Iniziali ornate e decorate, testo su due colonne. Difetti alla legatura, internamente tracce d’uso, buon esemplare.

 

Rarissima Prima Edizione figurata. Uno dei più importanti libri della storia della scienza. In quest’opera Von Guericke descrive l'invenzione della pompa ad aria e il famoso esperimento con gli emisferi di Magdeburgo, in cui due squadre di otto cavalli furono impiegate nel tentativo di separare due emisferi di rame dai quali era stata prelevata l'aria; descrive anche l'invenzione della prima macchina elettrica, che ha generato le prime cariche elettriche visibili e udibili. Dibner: “A book of prime importance in electrical discovery, air-pressure and the vacuum pump. Described are electric conduction and repulsion and the discharging power of points. Guericke constructed a spherical rotor of sulphur mounted on a crank; its rotation and contact upon it generated the first visible and audible electric sparks.”

Daintith: “In 1650 Guericke constructed the first air pump, which he used to create a vacuum in various containers. He showed that sound would not travel in a vacuum, and furthermore that a vacuum would not support combustion or animal life. In 1654 Guericke gave an impressive demonstration in front of the emperor Ferdinand III, of the force of atmospheric pressure. Two identical copper hemispheres 12 feet (3.66 m) in diameter were joined together. When the air was pumped out, 16 horses could not pull them apart although when the air reentered the hemispheres they fell apart by themselves. He also showed that 20 men could not hold a piston in a cylinder once the air had been evacuated from one end of it. In 1663 he built the first electrical friction machine by rotating a sulfur globe against a cloth. The results of these and other experiments were published in his Experimental nova Magdeburgica de vacuo spatio.” 

Krafft: “Guericke’s experimental work, however, represents only one facet of his attempt to reach a complete physical world view. He drew upon his Copernicanism to construct the foundations for such a system. Guericke’s celestial physics were further based upon the notion that the heavenly bodies interacted with each other across empty space through magnetic force; here he turned to the earlier work of Gilbert and Kepler. Their magnetic hypotheses had been refuted by Athanasius Kircher (in Magnes sive De arte magnetica, 1641); joining the argument, Guericke sought to modify Gilbert’s magnetism experiments by making use of materials mimicking the actual composition of the earth. To this end Guericke cast a sphere composed of a variety of minerals with a large proportion of sulfur—in later experiments he used pure sulfur—and showed that it possessed the virtutes mundanae, that is, such powers as attraction and the ability to move other bodies. By rubbing the sphere of sulfur, Guericke had actually produced static electricity; but since he did not recognize these electrical effects as special phenomena, but as demonstrations of the virtutes of a celestial body, he cannot properly be credited with the invention of the first electrical machine […] Such speculations about the heavenly bodies quite naturally led Guericke to the study of astronomy. He explained planetary orbits as exactly circular and concentric, effected by the rotating orbis virtutis of the sun, and interpreted the apparent eccentricities as a result of the different densities of the atmosphere.”

La grande tavola fuori testo su doppia pagina che illustra il celebre esperimento del vuoto si trova dopo pagina 104. Dopo pagina 198 la grande tavola che rappresenta il sistema solare secondo la teoria eliocentrica di Copernico.

 

Dibner, Heralds of Science, 55 (pp. 30 & 67); Dibner, Founding Fathers of Electrical Science, pp. 13-14; DSB V.574-76; Evans, Exhibition of First Editions of Epochal Achievements in the History of Science (1934), 30; Horblit 44; Norman 952; Parkinson, Breakthroughs, pp. 112-3; Grolier/Horblit 44; Sparrow, Milestones of Science 90; NLM/Krivatsy 5074; Wellcome III, p.175; Wheeler Gift 170; Norman 952. Biographical Encyclopedia of Scientists, Ed. John Daintith. Fritz Krafft, Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography.