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ORDONNANCIE ENDE INSTRUCTIE NAER DE WELCKE VOORT-AEN HEN MOETEN REGULEREN DIE GHESWOREN WISSELAERS OFTE COLLECTEURS VANDE GOUDE ENDE SILVEREN PENNINGEN WESENDE VERBODEN, GHESCHROYT, TE LICHT OFT TE SEER VERSLETEN by (COMMERCIAL TRADING - CURRENCY)

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$4,992.00

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Seller: Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Medieval Manuscripts

Title: ORDONNANCIE ENDE INSTRUCTIE NAER DE WELCKE VOORT-AEN HEN MOETEN REGULEREN DIE GHESWOREN WISSELAERS OFTE COLLECTEURS VANDE GOUDE ENDE SILVEREN PENNINGEN WESENDE VERBODEN, GHESCHROYT, TE LICHT OFT TE SEER VERSLETEN
Author: (COMMERCIAL TRADING - CURRENCY)
Seller: Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Medieval Manuscripts (United States)
Description: Antwerp: Hieronymus Verdussen, 1633. 308 x 98 mm. (12 1/8 x 3 7/8"). [126] leaves. Contemporary sprinkled sheep, raised bands, spine attractively gilt in compartments with floral lozenge centerpiece and volute cornerpieces, maroon morocco label. WITH 3,370 WOODCUTS depicting both sides of 1,685 coins in their actual size. ◆Minor rubbing to joints and extremities, faint stains to pastedowns (from glue?), other trivial defects internally, but AN UNUSUALLY FINE COPY, the binding with only negligible wear, and the text quite clean and fresh. Printed on thick, high quality paper, this compendium of the coins in use in Europe during the 17th century is an excellent artifact of commerce in the Dutch Golden Age, when the Netherlands dominated trade in Europe as the most prosperous nation of the era. Our volume was printed in Antwerp, a major commercial center, and was intended for use by merchants, bankers, and money changers, all of whom needed to determine the legitimacy and value of the multitude of currencies then in circulation. Cities, duchies, principalities, dioceses, and other bodies issued their own coinage in addition to that minted by heads of state and the Holy Roman Emperor, and as leaders of these governments changed, so did the money. In short, it was nightmarishly complex for anyone conducting commerce that went beyond bartering, and the multinational trade of the Dutch presented a particular challenge. The present guide illustrates both sides of each coin, depicted in its actual size and sometimes accompanied by notations of weight and metallic content. The unusual dimensions of the book--which make the volume of interest even apart from its content--represent the size and shape of a ledger, which would have been carried by a merchant or banker in the pocket of a robe. While it seems unlikely that the present volume is unique in its content, this kind of book seems not to have been widely printed. In any case, ours appears to be the only edition under this or any similar title. It is uncommonly seen in the marketplace, and as a heavily consulted book, it is almost always found in poor condition..

Proof of the Ergodic Theorem. WITH: Proof of the Quasi-Ergodic Hypothesis. WITH: Physical Applications of the Ergodic Hypothesis. WITH: Recent Contributions to the Ergodic Theory by VON NEUMANN, JOHN; BIRKHOFF, G.D.

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Seller: The Manhattan Rare Book Company

Title: Proof of the Ergodic Theorem. WITH: Proof of the Quasi-Ergodic Hypothesis. WITH: Physical Applications of the Ergodic Hypothesis. WITH: Recent Contributions to the Ergodic Theory
Author: VON NEUMANN, JOHN; BIRKHOFF, G.D.
Seller: The Manhattan Rare Book Company (United States)
Condition: Very Good
Description: Easton, PA and Washington, DC: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 1932. First edition. Original wrappers. Very Good. IMPORTANT PAPERS - IN BOTH OFFPRINT AND JOURNAL FORMATS - RELATED TO VON NEUMANN'S PROOF OF THE ERGODIC THEOREM, A FUNDAMENTAL CONTRIBUTION TO OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF STATISTICAL MECHANICS AND THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. In 1877 the great physicist Ludwig Boltzmann published a paper that sought to explain why systems tend toward maximum-entropy equilibrium states as predicted by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The conceptual essence of the 1877 paper was this: a system - say, a gas in a container - can exist in any of an inconceivably large number of "states," each differing from all others in the precise position or velocity of at least one molecule. In modern terminology, each such distinguishable disposition of the molecules of a physical system is called a "microstate". But enormous numbers of microstates are equivalent in macroscopic terms - although they differ in terms of the precise locations and velocities of specific molecules, they look the same from the perspective of bulk thermodynamic variables such as temperature and pressure. In other words, such microstates are part of the same "macrostate." The key to Boltzmann's 1877 analysis was his recognition that the maximum-entropy state of a system - i.e., its equilibrium state - is precisely the macrostate that is consistent with the largest number of microstates. (This can be shown by a rather elementary application of combinatorial analysis, which Boltzmann undertook in the 1877 paper.) Accordingly, it is overwhelmingly more probable than not that a system - as it transitions from one microstate to the next - will eventually wind up in one of the microstates corresponding to the equilibrium macrostate. There was, however, important gap in Boltzmann's magisterial 1877 analysis - a gap that Boltzmann failed to recognize or, at least, to acknowledge. This was the implicit assumption that each microstate is equally probable - in other words, that as a system evolves in accordance with the fundamental laws of molecular mechanics, it will, on average, spend an amount of time in each macrostate that is proportional to the number of microstates in the macrostate. To restate the matter using more technical terminology, the assumption is that the fraction of time the system spends in each macrostate is proportional to that macrostate's "volume" expressed as a fraction of the total accessible volume of the "phase space" for the system. (A "phase space" is an abstract multidimensional space representing all possible microstates of a physical system.) That assumption, in turn, is a consequence of what is now generally referred to as the "ergodic hypothesis." The hypothesis had been an explicitly-acknowledged or implicitly-assumed element of Boltzmann's reasoning about the statistical behavior of molecules from the first time he articulated it in a series of papers in the 1860s. But - despite several attempts - Boltzmann never offered any persuasive argument that real systems of molecules do display ergodic behavior, and at times he expressed doubt as to whether the hypothesis was even true. Ever since Boltzmann's 1877 tour de force, mathematicians and physicists have been attempting to justify the ergodic hypothesis - to show that it accurately describes the statistical behavior of molecules moving about in conformity with the fundamental laws of mechanics (whether classical or quantum). This is among the "set of issues that continue to plague the foundations of the theory [of statistical mechanics]" (Lawrence Sklar, "Physics and Chance: Philosophical Issues in the Foundations of Statistical Mechanics" (1993)). It was the problem that the mathematician John von Neumann tackled in the papers offered here. "Von Neumann [1903-1957] may have been the last representative of a once-flourishing and numerous group, the great mathematicians who were equally at home in pure and applied mathematics and who throughout their careers maintained a steady production in both directions. ... [I]n a profession where quick minds are somewhat commonplace, his amazing rapidity was proverbial. There is hardly a single important part of the mathematics of the 1930's with which he had not at least a passing acquaintance, and the same is probably true of theoretical physics." (DSB). His important contributions to pure and applied mathematics include the theory of Hilbert spaces, his axiomatization of quantum mechanics, and his pioneering work in game theory, in quantum statistics and thermodynamics, in numerical analysis, in the theory of computer architecture, in the theory of automata, and in game theory. Essentially, what von Neumann demonstrated in the offered papers is that the ergodic hypothesis is equivalent to an assumption called "metric indecomposability," or "metric transitivity." In simple, intuitive terms, and omitting some technical qualifications, a physical system is metrically indecomposable (or transitive) if it evolves in such a way that regardless of its initial microstate, it will not remain confined within any sub-region of the system's phase space. Von Neumann showed that a metrically transitive system will have properties whose average over time is equal to the average value of those properties over the phase space of all possible microstates. And that, in turn, is sufficient to underwrite Boltzmann's conclusion that the equilibrium macrostate, representing the overwhelmingly largest percentage of a phase space, is ipso facto the most probable macrostate. Von Neumann communicated his results to George Birkhoff prior to publication, and Birkhoff managed to prove a sharper, stronger version of von Neumann's theorem (the "pointwise" ergodic theorem v. von Neumann's "mean" ergodic theorem), which, through the vagaries of the publication process, appeared before von Neumann's paper. In March 1931, two months after von Neumann's proof was published, von Neumann and Birkhoff published two separate papers in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences comparing the two proofs. (The March 1931 issue of PNAS is included among the items offered here.) Von Neumann's paper ("Physical Applications of the Ergodic Hypothesis") noted that "it is of interest to decide which of the two formulations [von Neumann's or Birkhoff's] corresponds to the actual physical problem of the ergodic hypothesis. It turns out that the weaker form [i.e., that proved by von Neumann] is sufficient, - that it, indeed, is the precise mathematical equivalent of the physical state of affairs." Birkhoff's paper, co-authored with B.O. Koopman, provided a detailed summary of the history of the Ergodic Hypothesis, noted that "[t]he first one actually to establish a general theorem bearing fundamentally on the Quasi-Ergodic Hypothesis was J. v. Neumann ...", acknowledged that von Neumann had communicated his results to Birkhoff in October 1931, and recognized that "[f]rom the point of view of the gross statistics on [the phase space]," the two theorems are identical, but claimed that Birkhoff's result was "fundamentally more far-reaching." "One presumes that [Birkhoff] sent copies [of his 1931 paper] to Koopman and von Neumann, who would have noticed that Birkhoff had not given von Neumann adequate credit and recognition for his result. Von Neumann evidently planned to include his ergodic theorem and its proof in a much longer paper he was writing for the Annals of Mathematics, but he then apparently quickly drafted a short paper for PNAS with his proof of the mean ergodic theorem and submitted it to PNAS on December 10, 1931. It appeared in the January 1932 issue. One suspects that these events led Koopman and Birkhoff to write and publish their [March 1932] paper in PNAS ..., which set matters straight and clearly acknowledged von Neumann's priority." (Calvin C. Moore, "Ergodic Theorem, Ergodic Theory, and Statistical Mechanics", in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(7): 1907-11 (2015)). Von Neumann's paper did not seek to prove that any particular physical systems were in fact metrically transitive. Indeed, "metric indecomposability ... is itself extremely difficult to establish for realistic models." (Sklar, op cit.). For this reason, some have criticized the von Neumann/Birkhoff ergodic theorem as an exercise in question begging - a way of restating the problem without solving it. (Birkhoff himself stated, in the 1932 paper offered here, that "the outstanding unsolved problem in the ergodic theory is [now] the question of the truth or falsity of metrical transitivity for general Hamiltonian systems. In other words, the Quasi-Ergodic Hypothesis has been replaced by its modern version: the Hypothesis of Metrical Transitivity.") But by providing a precise mathematical criterion for identifying the type of dynamical behavior that would provide an adequate underpinning for statistical mechanics (and therefore for thermodynamics), von Neumann's paper defined a goal, created an approach, and initiated a research program that has since taken great strides in identifying specific types of model systems that do demonstrate ergodic behavior and specific types that do not. (The work of Yakov Sinai is notable in the first category; and the "KAM" theorem of Andrei Kolmogorov, Vladimir Arnold, and Jürgen Moser is notable in the second.) See H Scott Dumas, "The KAM Story: A Friendly Introduction to the Content, History, and Significance of Classical Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser Theory" (2014), pp 168-71, for a crisp summary of the current state of play. See also section 6 of Jos Uffink, "Compendium of the Foundations of Classical Statistical Physics", in Jeremy Butterfield & John Earman, "Philosophy of Physics" (2007). These efforts to determine what types of systems might behave ergodically have come far since 1932, but have a long way yet to go. There still exists no general proof that ergodic behavior predominates in all or most "physically realistic" model systems. "The nagging questions still nag, and even proliferate." (Dumas, op cit., p. 171.) Indeed, some continue to question the "explanatory relevance" of ergodic theory - that is, whether ergodicity is even necessary or sufficient as a support for statistical mechanics. See, e.g., John Earman and Micklós Rédei, "Why Ergodic Theory Does Not Explain the Success of Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics", Brit J. Phil. Sci. 47: 63-78 (2996); David B. Malament and Sandy L. Zabell, "Why Gibbs Phase Averages Work - The Role of Ergodic Theory", Philosophy of Sci., 47:339-49 (1980), and Moore, op cit. As a foundational issue for an important branch of physics, the existence, necessity, and sufficiency of ergodicity continues to be an issue of great importance to many physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers of science, whose work continues to build on the foundation put in place by von Neumann's theorem. The Collection: - Proof of the Quasi-Ergodic Hypothesis (von Neumann). IN: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Vol 18, Issue 1, pp. 70-82. Octavo, the entire issue in original wrappers. Minor creasing, small chip at spine end, generally fine. WITH: The offprint of the same article, without wrappers and with a new spine. Easton, PA and Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1932. - Physical Applications of the Ergodic Hypothesis (von Neumann). WITH: Recent Contributions to the Ergodic Theory (Birkhoff and Koopman). IN: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Vol 18, Issue 3, pp. 263-66; 279-292 . Octavo, the entire issue in original wrappers. 1932 stamp of the Linnean Society of London on front wrapper, otherwise fine. WITH: The offprint of von Neumann's "Physical Applications..." in fine condition in original wrappers. Easton, PA and Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1932. - Proof of the Ergodic Theorem (Birkhoff). IN: Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Vol. 17, pp. 656-660. Octavo, the entire bound volume 17 in library cloth from the Indiana School of Medicine, with bookplate, "due date" slip, and spine stamp. Some marks to binding, text fine. AN IMPORTANT COLLECTION WITH THE MAJOR PAPERS IN RARE JOURNAL AND OFFPRINT FORMATS.

The Symphony Story [Unfaithfully Yours]. Screenplay by Preston Sturges by Sturges, Preston

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Seller: Thomas A Goldwasser Rare Books

Title: The Symphony Story [Unfaithfully Yours]. Screenplay by Preston Sturges
Author: Sturges, Preston
Seller: Thomas A Goldwasser Rare Books (United States)
Description: Los Angeles: Twentieth Century-Fox, 1948. Mimeographed sheets, 159 pages. Brad-fastened in covers stamped with the working title and the date, January 15, 1948; blue revised pages dated 1/19/1948. Copy number "16": stamped on cover and first page, distribution receipt removed. Covers show some use. The original screenplay for Sturges's first film for Fox. This classic dark comedy starred Rex Harrison in a character partly modeled on Sir Thomas Beecham. The copy of cinematographer Victor Milner, with his signature and notes on the front cover, and his ink or pencil notes about shots, lighting, etc. at various places in the margins. Besides his other work for Sturges (The Lady Eve, Christmas in July, The Palm Beach Story) Milner also filmed such classics as Trouble in Paradise (1932) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946).

A Streetcar Named Desire by Williams, Tennessee

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Seller: Carpetbagger Books, ABAA

Title: A Streetcar Named Desire
Author: Williams, Tennessee
Seller: Carpetbagger Books, ABAA (United States)
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Limited Editions Club, 1982. Hardcover. Near Fine. Al Hirschfield. Foreword by Jessica Tandy. Introduction by Tennessee Williams. Illustrated by Al Hirschfield, who has signed the limitation page. Near Fine in a Good slipcase, generally rubbed and stained with the paper wearing through. Quarter brown leather with patterned paper on the boards, faded at the spine. Square and firmly bound, clean internally.

Johannes Grutzke Selbstverständlich (Johannes Grutzke Of Course) by Bacher, Jutta

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$90.00

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Seller: Eric Chaim Kline - Bookseller

Title: Johannes Grutzke Selbstverständlich (Johannes Grutzke Of Course)
Author: Bacher, Jutta
Seller: Eric Chaim Kline - Bookseller (United States)
ISBN: 9783930594078
Condition: vg
Description: Aachen: Thouet, 1995. First edition. Hardcover. vg. 4to. 142 pp. Black cloth binding with dj. Some light bumping to edges. Some creasing to edges of dj. Comprehensive description of the work of Johannes Grützke. Illustrated with annotated color and b/w plates. Color folding plate laid in ( "FT 51 Der Zug der Volksvertreter 1989-1991") Text in German. Book in fine condition.

LA HIJA DEL EMBAJADOR by Valdés, Zoé

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Seller: Type Punch Matrix

Title: LA HIJA DEL EMBAJADOR
Author: Valdés, Zoé
Seller: Type Punch Matrix (United States)
Condition: Near fine in near fine jacket.
Description: (Mallorca): (Bitzoc), 1995. First printing. Near fine in near fine jacket.. Inscribed first Spanish edition of the Cuban writer's short novel - winner of the Premio de Novela Breve Juan March Cencillo for 1995 and published as Bitzoc Literatura No. 23. 9'' x 5.5''. Original pale green wrappers with French flaps. In original unclipped (no price) green pictorial dust jacket. 71, [9] pages. Inscribed by Valdés on title page: "Para Fernando E. Vega, / flotando siempre en el azul de mi isla. / De su / Zoé Valdés / Paris, 15 de Marzo del 1998." Minor edgewear. Sharp.

Poetry and the Renascence of Wonder by Watts-Dunton, Theodore

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Seller: The Kelmscott Bookshop

Title: Poetry and the Renascence of Wonder
Author: Watts-Dunton, Theodore
Seller: The Kelmscott Bookshop (United States)
Condition: Very Good
Description: London: Herbert Jenkins Ltd, 1916. Hardcover. Very Good. Hardcover. 8vo. FIRST EDITION. Grey cloth boards with blue title to spine and front board. Minor wear to edges. Clean, tight interior with bookplate of Mark Samuels Lasner to front endpage. Very nice. 296 pages. PRERAPH/031706.

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