“Optics” is up for auction in Forum Auctions for $500 thousand

Presentation publication of the scientific work of Isaac Newton (1643-1727), Optics (1704), was put up for sale at the London Auction Forum for £400,000 (almost $500,000).This is stated in the message of the capital trading house.

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This copy of the book of an English scientist, considered one of the most important in physics, was one of the first six printed ones that Newton personally handed to friends and colleagues.It was donated by an outstanding Englishman to a close friend of the Swiss mathematician Nicola Fatio de Duillet (1664-1753), a member of the Royal Society.A large part of his adult life was spent in England and Holland.

During the author’s lifetime, this book, which discusses the fundamental laws concerning the passage of light upon refraction through prisms and lenses, diffraction, interference, and the theory of color mixing, has survived, as the Daily Mail recalls, three editions (1704, 1717, 1721) and many translations, including three in Latin

The leather-bound edition was presented for sale by a private collector, from whom it was kept for half a century.According to experts, in the world there are about 180 copies of Optics.

At the auction, Christie’s previously went under the hammer for $2.5 million a rare copy of the first edition of the fundamental scientific work of Isaac Newton’s “Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”. A copy of the book in which the scientist formulated many of the provisions that became fundamental to classical physics, including the law of universal gravitation, was printed in 1687 specifically for the English king James II Stuart.The cover of the volume in 24.2 by 18.8 cm format is decorated with the monarch’s personal monogram made in gold letters.The estimated value of the lot ranged from $400 thousand to $600 thousand.