A collector has just found a copy ofOpticks, a treatise discussing the fundamental nature of light written by Isaac Newton. Disappeared for a century, the book was actually hidden in the personal collection of David DiLaura, a former professor at the University of Colorado. It corresponds to a second edition printed in 1717. After study, it turned out that it had previously belonged to the son of John Huggins, who bought many of his works without a will when Newton died.
Opticks belongs to the few major works that have revolutionized physics. First published in 1704, it is the result of decades of investigation by the physicist Isaac Newton. The language used, unlike the work Principia Mathematica, is English and not Latin, allowing more readers to be able to understand it. The book will be auctioned during the Rare Books Fair of San Francisco, which will be held from February 3 to 5. Its final price should reach the astronomical sum of 460,000 dollars!
