Lot 35
Ernest RUTHERFORD Radio-Activity 1st ed 1904.

Estimate: $600 - $900

Have one like this?

About this Lot
Description
Ernest RUTHERFORD Radio-Activity.

Offered for sale by Adam Langlands of 'Shadowrock Rare Books' - for more information please contact him via email at adamlanglands@gmail.com

Ernest RUTHERFORD, first Baron Rutherford of Nelson (1871-1934). Radio-Activity. Cambridge: [printed by J. and C.F. Clay,] at the University Press, 1904. Octavo (8 ½ x 5 1/2in; 209 x 139mm). Pp. [i-]viii[-x, 1-]399[-400], [i-iv of advertisements]. Occasional graphs and diagrams in the text. (Some toning). Original green cloth, lettered in gilt, blocked rules in blind (slight discoloration to spine, spine chipped at head and foot, some spotting to endpapers).

First edition of Rutherford's survey of contemporary knowledge of the entire field of radioactivity: a work which was  "recognized as a classic at its publication in 1904" (DSB)  "He discovered and named alpha and beta rays emitted from radio-active salts and predicted that disintegration of some radioactive elements would generate helium. He also produced in the laboratory the first artificial transmutation of one element into another" (Dibner). 

Dibner Heralds of Science 51; Grolier/Horblit 91; Norman 1871.