MAUPERTUIS Pierre Louis Moreau de Les Oeuvres.

D.S.B., IX, 189 ff.

First edition of the Works. It contains the principal works by the scientist such as : Essai de cosmologie; Les loix du mouvement et du repos; Mesure de la terre au cercle polaire; Lettre sur la comète; Vénus physique; Relation d'un voyage fait dans la Laponie, etc. It does not containt the purely mathematival work as explained in the preface.

"In the middle of 1745 Maupertuis finally accepted Frederick [the Great's] invitation and took up residence in Berlin. His first contribution was the brief paper Les lois du mouvement et du repos, in which he set forth the famous principle of least action, which he regarded as his most significant scientific contribution. It states simply that 'in all the changes that take place in the universe, the sum of the products of each body, multiplied by the distance it moves and by the speed with which it moves is the least possible'. That is, this quantity tends to a minimum. The principle was later clarified and expounded by Euler, developed by Hamilton and Lagrange, and incorporated in modern times into quantum mechanics and the biological principle of homeostasis" (DSB).

Some foxing throughout, sometimes stronger.