JOHN KEILL (1671 - 1721)

Joannis Keill, M.D. Regiae Soc. Lond. Socii, In Acad. Oxon. Astronomiae Professoris Saviliani Introductiones ad veram Physicam et veram Astronomiam. Quibus accedunt Trigonometria. De viribus centralibus. De legibus attractionis. Lugduni Batavorum, apud Joh. Et Herm. Verbeek Bibliop., 1725.


§ 4to (253 x 195), [4], 636, [12] pp., 47 folding plates; sign.: *2, A-NNNN4, OOOO2 (last leaf blank), red and black title page.). Contemporary full vellum binding with gilded title on label on the spine.

First edition of the posthumous opera omnia of the Scottish mathematician and astronomer John Keill, one of the first authors dedicated to the systematic dissemination of Newton's Principia and his tireless defender in the polemic against Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz concerning the paternity of calculus.
The present collection of texts is important also because it preserves the original edition of Keill’s studies of the last period, concerning the central forces - and in particular the centripetal force - (De viribus centralibus, pp. 583-620) and the force of gravitational attraction (De legibus attractionis, pp. 621-636). Ref: De La Lande, p. 380; Houzeau-Lancaster, 9240; OCLC 257773059