The Foundation of Analytical Mechanics

LAGRANGE, Joseph Louis.

Méchanique Analitique.

Paris: chez la Veuve Desaint, 1788.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002930

4to (254 x 200 mm). xii, 512 pp., including half title. Contemporary French mottled calf, spine with floral gilt decoration, 5 raised bands and gilt-lettered label (lower joint of front board partially split and with old repair, little wear to extremities, corners scuffed), marbled endpapers, red-stained edges. Internally clean with only little browning and very minor occasional spotting, faint dampstain to upper gutter of first three and the final gatherings including title-page. Provenance: illegible stamp and manuscript shelf mark to title page. A near fine copy in well preserved binding of the time. ----

Dibner 112; Horblit 61; Norman 1257; Sparrow 120; Honeyman 1880; En Francais dans le texte 179. - FIRST EDITION OF LAGRANGE'S FOUNDATION WORK ON ANALYTICAL MECHANICS. Lagrange's masterpiece was an extension on Newton's work on mechanics. In it he moulded theoretical mechanics into a system from which fundamental equations describing the motions of any systems of bodies could be derived. To achieve this Lagrange combined the principle of virtual velocities with d'Alembert's principle. He thereby set down the principle of virtual velocities as applied to mechanics. In his preface, Lagrange draws attention to the absence of diagrams in the book, which he believed the lucidity of his own presentation had rendered superfluous. "With the appearance of the Mechanique Analitique in 1788, Lagrange proposed to reduce the theory of mechanics and the art of solving problems in that field to general formulas, the mere development of which would yield all the equations necessary for the solution of every problem... [it] united and presented from a single point of view the various principles of mechanics, demonstrated their connection and mutual dependence, and made it possible to judge their validity and scope" (DSB).

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