THE DOCTRINE AND APPLICATION OF FLUXIONS. Containing (Besides what is Common on the Subject) A Number of New Improvements in the Theory. And the Solution of a Variety of New, and very Interesting, Problems in different Branches of the Mathematicks
London: John Nourse, 1776. Half Leather. Very Good binding. Item #7049
Octavo. xi, [1 (ads)], 274, [2], 275-576 pp., diagrams. Second edition, revised and corrected. Backed in modern speckled calf with marbled paper over boards; maroon morocco title label on the spine; profusely illustrated with diagrams and equations throughout; the second part has a separate title page; ESTC notes a leaf of advertisements found before the second title page in some copies, not present in this copy. A very handsome binding with limited wear; contents are quite clean and fresh with only light wear to the top corner of the first few leaves and pinhole worming to the outer margin of the first half of the volume.
Self-taught mathematician, Simpson reputation as an astrologer and fortune-teller earned him the name "the oracle of Nuneaton, Bosworth and the environs." In 1737, after moving to London and taking a position teaching mathematics, Simpson's first work was published: A New Treatise of Fluxions, which was "a high-quality textbook devoted to the calculus of fluxions, the Newtonian version of the infinitesimal calculus" (DNB). This was early for such a complex and meaningful contribution to a calculus which few mathematicians had mastery. More than a decade later Simpson published the first edition of this present work, The Doctrine and Application of Fluxions, which was, in the author's words, "vastly more full and comprehensive" and which handles the subject in a "different Manner" (p. v). Niccolo Guicciardini, in his entry for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, calls it "one of the best treatises on fluxions written in the eighteenth century." This more mature work would not be reissued until Nourse's 1776 second edition, "revised and carefully corrected" offered here. ESTC T77585.
Price: $950.00