Manhattan Rare Book Company

”In this work, the Principia of electrodynamics, Ampère first described the laws of action of electric currents, which he had discovered from four extremely ingenious experiments...” -L. Pearce Williams

FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPPERS OF AMPÈRE’S MASTERPIECE, “THE PRINCIPIA OF ELECTRODYNAMICS”.

In 1820, “Ampère’s friend and eventual eulogist François Arago demonstrated before the members of the French Academy of Sciences the surprising discovery of Danish physicist Hans Christiaan Ørsted that a magnetic needle is deflected by an adjacent electric current... Ampère immediately set to work developing a mathematical and physical theory to understand the relationship between electricity and magnetism. Extending Ørsted’s experimental work, Ampère showed that two parallel wires carrying electric currents repel or attract each other, depending on whether the currents flow in the same or opposite directions, respectively. He also applied mathematics in generalizing physical laws from these experimental results. Most important was the principle that came to be called Ampère’s law, which states that the mutual action of two lengths of current-carrying wire is proportional to their lengths and to the intensities of their currents. Ampère also applied this same principle to magnetism, showing the harmony between his law and French physicist Charles Augustin de Coulomb’s law of magnetic action. Ampère’s devotion to, and skill with, experimental techniques anchored his science within the emerging fields of experimental physics.

“Ampère also offered a physical understanding of the electromagnetic relationship, theorizing the existence of an ‘electrodynamic molecule’ (the forerunner of the idea of the electron) that served as the constituent element of electricity and magnetism. Using this physical understanding of electromagnetic motion, Ampère developed a physical account of electromagnetic phenomena that was both empirically demonstrable and mathematically predictive. In 1827 Ampère published his magnum opus, Mémoire sur la théorie mathématique des phénomènes électrodynamiques uniquement déduite de l’experience (Memoir on the Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena, Uniquely Deduced from Experience), the work that coined the name of his new science, electrodynamics, and became known ever after as its founding treatise. In recognition of his contribution to the making of modern electrical science, an international convention signed in 1881 established the ampere as a standard unit of electrical measurement...” (Britannica).

IN: Mémoires de l'Académie des Sciences de l'Institut de France, Vol. 6, pp. 175-388. Paris: Firmin Didot, 1827. Quarto, original wrappers with text uncut; custom box. With two folding engraved plates. Neat splits to spine (stabilized), light edgewear to wrappers. Some soiling to volume text and a few small marginal tears, but Ampère paper generally clean and almost entirely unopened. An outstanding copy, rare in such good original condition.

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