MERSENNE, Marin.

L'Optique, et la Catoptrique...

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Numerous woodcut diagrams in the text. 6 p.l., 134 pp. Folio, cont. sheep (a little rubbed), finely rebacked to match. Paris: the Widow of F. Langlois, 1651. First edition of one of Mersenne’s rarer books, published posthumously. “His final contributions to optics, including experimental studies of visual acuity and binocular vision and a critical discussion of current hypotheses on the nature of light, appeared posthumously in L’optique et la catoptrique (1651).”–D.S.B., IX, p. 319. In the present work, Mersenne “advanced the quantification of light considerably. The first, on optics, consists of propositions, each followed by demonstration and commentary. For photometrics, the most important are those describing photometric principles, those showing procedures for making measurement and comparison, and finally those dealing with quantification. Mersenne is the first to compare the power of light sources, and to quantify the effect of the obliquity of incidence... “Mersenne’s L’Optique et la Catoptrique contains the first extensive development of photometrics.”–David Di Laura, “Introduction” in Johann Heinrich Lambert Photometry (2001), pp. lviii-lxv. Fine fresh copy. Armorial bookplate of “Henry Godfrey Godfrey Faussett Osborne, Hartlip Place.”

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