By 1922 Max Planck was the grand old man of German physics. His constant h had cracked the classical world picture, and the Nobel Prize of 1918 had followed. He was also, by his own lights, a teacher first. This is the third volume of his Einführung in die theoretische Physik, the five-part introduction to theoretical physics that grew out of more than three decades of his Berlin lectures. The volume takes on the subject at the heart of modern physics: the theory of electricity and magnetism, Maxwell's field in the hands of a master expositor. The title page states the book's generous purpose plainly, "zum Gebrauch bei Vorträgen, sowie zum Selbstunterricht": for use with lectures, and for teaching yourself. Anyone with the mathematics and the patience could sit down with this volume and learn electrodynamics from Max Planck.
The series became a standard of the interwar German-speaking world — the counterpart in its day of what Landau and Lifshitz or the Feynman lectures would later be. It was never republished after the Second World War, which gives the original Hirzel printings a period integrity. This volume appeared in Leipzig in 1922, in the feverish early years of the Weimar Republic, with twelve figures in the text and the publisher's little circus-tent device on the title page. A previous owner has left a penciled price notation at the head of the front endpaper.
This copy is the first edition of 1922; later printings followed in 1928 and 1937. It comes in the publisher's original stiff cloth binding printed in black with an ornamental border, the front cover serving almost as a second title page. Planck's textbooks were printed in quantity for students and survive accordingly, so rarity is not the claim here. Clean first printings in the original binding have become steadily harder to find as the working copies wore out. The appeal is direct: a foundational subject taught by one of its founders, in the edition his own students carried.
PLANCK, Max (1858-1947). Einführung in die Theorie der Elektrizität und des Magnetismus. Zum Gebrauch bei Vorträgen, sowie zum Selbstunterricht. Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1922. First edition (Einführung in die theoretische Physik, volume III).
Physical Description: Octavo. With 12 figures in the text, as called for; publisher's device on the title page.
Binding: Publisher's original cloth-covered boards printed in black, front cover with ornamental border repeating the title and imprint, darker cloth spine.
Condition: Covers lightly soiled and rubbed, spine toned; internally clean and sound, paper evenly age-toned, with a small penciled price notation of an earlier owner or dealer at the head of the front free endpaper.
By 1922 Max Planck was the grand old man of German physics. His constant h had cracked the classical world picture, and the Nobel Prize of 1918 had followed. He was also, by his own lights, a teacher first. This is the third volume of his Einführung in die theoretische Physik, the five-part introduction to theoretical physics that grew out of more than three decades of his Berlin lectures. The volume takes on the subject at the heart of modern physics: the theory of electricity and magnetism, Maxwell's field in the hands of a master expositor. The title page states the book's generous purpose plainly, "zum Gebrauch bei Vorträgen, sowie zum Selbstunterricht": for use with lectures, and for teaching yourself. Anyone with the mathematics and the patience could sit down with this volume and learn electrodynamics from Max Planck.
The series became a standard of the interwar German-speaking world — the counterpart in its day of what Landau and Lifshitz or the Feynman lectures would later be. It was never republished after the Second World War, which gives the original Hirzel printings a period integrity. This volume appeared in Leipzig in 1922, in the feverish early years of the Weimar Republic, with twelve figures in the text and the publisher's little circus-tent device on the title page. A previous owner has left a penciled price notation at the head of the front endpaper.
This copy is the first edition of 1922; later printings followed in 1928 and 1937. It comes in the publisher's original stiff cloth binding printed in black with an ornamental border, the front cover serving almost as a second title page. Planck's textbooks were printed in quantity for students and survive accordingly, so rarity is not the claim here. Clean first printings in the original binding have become steadily harder to find as the working copies wore out. The appeal is direct: a foundational subject taught by one of its founders, in the edition his own students carried.
PLANCK, Max (1858-1947). Einführung in die Theorie der Elektrizität und des Magnetismus. Zum Gebrauch bei Vorträgen, sowie zum Selbstunterricht. Leipzig: Verlag von S. Hirzel, 1922. First edition (Einführung in die theoretische Physik, volume III).
Physical Description: Octavo. With 12 figures in the text, as called for; publisher's device on the title page.
Binding: Publisher's original cloth-covered boards printed in black, front cover with ornamental border repeating the title and imprint, darker cloth spine.
Condition: Covers lightly soiled and rubbed, spine toned; internally clean and sound, paper evenly age-toned, with a small penciled price notation of an earlier owner or dealer at the head of the front free endpaper.
