BABBAGE, CHARLES. A comparative view of the various institutions for the assurance of lives

FIRST EDITION of Babbage's first published book, the first thorough treatise on actuarial theory, complete with folding table of mortality statistics, generally considered the first reliable life table.
$1,800.00    (photos & details)

 

BABBAGE, CHARLES. An essay towards the calculus of functions

FIRST EDITIONS, journal issues, of Babbage's two most important contributions to mathematics, essentially founding the general theory of the calculus of functions.
$3,000.00    (photos & details)

 

HAMILTON, WILLIAM. On Quaternions

FIRST APPEARANCE of the first presentation of Hamilton's Quaternions, "a turning point in the development of mathematics" that "made possible the creation of the general theory of relativity" (Pickering; PMM).
$3,800.00    (photos & details)

 

PEARSON, KARL. On the Criterion that a Given System of Deviations from the Probable in the Case of a Correlated System of Variables is such that it Can Reasonably Be Supposed to have Arisen from Random Sampling

FIRST EDITION of one of the most important papers in the history of statistics, introducing the ‘chi-squared’ test of goodness of fit, "one of the most useful of all statistical tests" and "one of Pearson's greatest single contributions to statistical methodology" (DSB).
$1,200.00    (photos & details)