Books offered by JF Ptak Science Books LLC

Rare Computer Manual, 1953.

ELECOM 100 Digital Computer Instruction Manual.  NYC:  Underwood Corporation,  1953.  1st edition.  110+ 17pp (appendix)  4to.  Very good condition.  Elecom Computer was bought by Underwood in 1953 (to become its Elecom Division) and produced three of these units (at about $60,000/unit). The Elecom was perhaps the last computer manufactured in the U.S. using vacuum tubes. The Elecom 100 was the first of the Underwood Elecom series, followed by the Elecom 120, 125, 200 and 50 (which for some reason was thus named in 1956). The are *no* listings for this manual in RLIN or OCLC. Rare.  $750

"Making Military Drawings While Flying on an Aeroplane: how the sketches were made in mid-air".  London:  Illustrated London News,  1911.  1st edition.  Folio.  Original printed wrappers.  Very good condition.  Very nice copy removed from larger bound volume 

This spectacular drawing is made from the viewpoint of the artist sitting directly behind the pilot of a Wright-style aeroplane. In the foreground we see the lap of the artist and his drawing pad as he sketches the terrain; the pilot's head takes up much of the center of the drawing, and in the background we see the distant horizon. Simply wonderful.   $125

Lutwak,  S..  Vela Hotel Spaceraft Structural Design Criteria WITH Vela Advanced Spacecraft Program WITH Vela Hotel Structural....  Space Technology Labs & TRW,  1962+1965.  13pp+18pp  4to.  Very good condition.  THREE very uncommon items, including #3 "Vela Hotel Structural and Dynamic criteria for Flight Electrical and Mechanical Assemblies..." 1962. Space Technology Laboratories, 12pp. The Lutwak work published by STL is a general structural overview of the satellite and is a mimeo/blueprint of very limited internal distribution. **AND** "Vela Advanced Spacecraft Program" published by TRW is a collection of 18 sheets of diagrams of various assemblies plus an ORIGINAL photograph of the satellite. RARE.

Sautter & Lemonnier,  L..  Note sur les Applications de la Lumiere Electrique a la'Art Militaire et la Marine Militaire.  Paris:  L. Sautter, Lemonnier & Cie.,  1879.  1st edition.  32pp  8vo.  Original printed wrappers.  Good  condition.  The title continues: "pour signeurs, eclairage a grandes distances, travaux de nuit, etc."

The pamphlet was published by the manufacturers and distributors, L. Sautter, Lemonnier & Co who were "Constructeurs de Phares lenticuleurs et de Machines de Gramme", and to this time were known particularly for their work in lens for lighthouses. This is a very early work on the military applications of the electric light, and is also quite rare, seemingly unknown to the OCLC/WorldCat as there are *no* copies listed. This copy was formerly in the collection of the U.S. War Department (with a very light rubberstamp on the fron cover dating its acquisition in 1883) and more rececntly from the Library of Congress.    $500.00

Allied Bombing and a Report on Damage to German Industry-- Fliegerangriff in der Nachct vom 17./18.8.40 auf die Hydrier.  1940.  Fine condition.  With 27 original photographs displaying bombing damage  Title: : Fliegerangriff in der Nachct vom 17./18.8.40 auf die Hydrierwerk Scholven A.G.  $750.

OGO--Orbiting Geophysical Observatory Materials, Manuscript, Blueprints, etc.  TRW and various,  1962-1964.  Includes: "Final Report, Investigation of OGO-A Malfunction, Vol 1, Technical Considerations." TRW, 1964. 4 parts, 75pp. PLUS "OGO Structure Subsystem Design Criteria", offset mimeo sheets, with folding blueprints, photos etc etc.  $500

Reissner,  Hans.  Jet Propulsion. A Systematic Analysis of Thermal Jet Propulsion. Written from January to October, 1945.  

1) original typed mimeographed sheets. 8vo, 36 leaves. In the original off-the-shelf binder, and titled in Reissner's hand. Dated October, 1945.  Stamped "Confidential".

2)  "Systematic Analysis of Thermal Jet Propulsion"   17 leaves (16 of text and 1 full-page illustration). Offset printed from typed originals.  Many mathematical notations in Reissner's hand.

This is an extremely early American  analysis of a working jet engine.  $950

Hans J. Reissner was a leading German pioneer in aeronautics and aeronautical engineering. He was appointed to the chair vacated by Arnold Sommerfeld at the Technische Hochschul at Aachen, where he established the aerodynamics laboratory. He also designed the great experimental wind tunnel at Aachen and was its second director (after T. von Karman). He went on to the University of Berlin where he remained until 1938, when he left Germany for the United States. Reissner held a chair at the Illinois Institute of Technology and in 1944 joined the faculty at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He became a U.S. citizen in 1944. Van Karman spoke very highly of Reissner and attributed his work in aerodynamics to be as important as those advances made by Prandtl (see von Karman’s Wind and Beyond). Reissner was also celebrated with two anniversary volumes of Applied MAthematiics for his 60th and 75th birthdays (in 1934 and 1949).

Arthur Korn: 6 Offprints

Arthur Korn:  six offprints, 1913-1927. $350

Korn (1870-1945) was one of the founders of television working in the field of fax transmission, and on 8th October, 1906 he trasnmitted teh first image via wire of Crown Prince WIlliam.  Being of Jewish descent, Korn (of Breslau) fled Germany in 1939 and settled in the United States, finding a teaching position and chair in math and physics at Stevens Institute of Technology (Hoboken, New Jersey).

"Ueber telegraphishe Uebertragungen kinematographischer Aufnahmen", offprint from Verhandlungen der Detuschen Physicalishcen Gesellschaft, 23 Sept 1913.  Original printed wrappers.  Very good copy.  Showing two illustrations of the results of Korn's image transfer by wire invention. 

"Das Elektron als pulsierendes Teilchen mit konstantem Pulsationsquantum", offprint fromn Deutschen Physicallischen Gesellschaft, Septmber 1913.  Original printed wrappers.  Very good. 

"Ueber den gegenwartigen Stand der Bildtelegraphie.... Offprint:  Elektrotechnischen Zeitschrift, heft 16, 1914.  Signed presentation copy.  Good condition.  Original wrappers. 

"Ueber die Anwendung der Methode der sukzessiven Naherungen zur Losung von linearen Integralgleichungen mit unsymmetriwchen Kernen.", offprint from Archiv der MAthemaitk und Physik, 25/2, 4 August 1916.  Original printed wrappers.  Very good.

"Sulle forze d'attrazione e di repulsione negli atomi" in Atti della Acad. delle Scienze di Torino, vol LX, 1925.  Signed presentation copy to Hans Reissner.  Very good copy. 

"Wellenmechanik und meine mechanischen Theorien. Beruehrungspunkte und Divergenzen". Verlag von Julius Springer, Berlin, 1927. Offprint: Zeitschrift fuer Physik, volume 44, heft 9/10, pp 745-753.  Signed "uberricht vom Verfasser".  

 Bell,  Alexander Graham.  The Photophone: 3 articles from the journal Nature, 1880. 

London:  1880-1881.  Nature: Nov 4 & 18, 1880; February 10, 1881  Original printed wrappers.  Fine condition. 

We offer the following three issues of Nature covering the initial announcenments of Bell's future-provoking invention of the PHOTOPHONE: (1) Bell's Photophone, pp 15-19, with illustrations of the apparatus, running approximately 3000 words. (2) Shelford Bidwell, "Bell's Photophone", in 18 November 1880, pp 58-9, approximately 1750 words. (3) "Photophone Experiments", in 10 February 1881, page 354, approximately 400 words, two illustrations. These are among the earliest articles on Bell's fantastic invention utilizing his discovery of the photoacoustic effect--basically, transmitting wireless telephone conversations, a feat that would not be utilized until the last two decades of the 10th century. /// We offer the three issues in their original wrappers, cleanly removed from a larger bound volume with only trace elements of the removal visible at their spines. Nice copies. $300

Bell believed that the photophone--developed most fully in his Volta Street lab, which was just three blocks away from where my store stood for nine years--as a machine that transmitted speech on light rays, was by far his most important invention.

A Pictorial Manual on Computers, 1957

Computers and Automation, issue December 1957, vol 6, no. 12.  36pp.  Original printed wrappers, removed from larger bound volume.  $95

This lovely illustrated story appears in the December 1957 issue of Edmund Berkeley's Computers and Automation, which was the world's first semi-popular magazine devoted to the computer.  The article is divided into questioned sections, including:

 "What is 'Operating a Computer' Like?,  showing the "new Computing Center" at the famous Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, the place where most of modern computing in America was born in 1944/5/6.