[MATHEMATICS]. QUETELET, Lambert Adolphe Jacques (1796-1874). Lettres Son Altesse Royale le Duc regnant de Saxe-Coburg et Gotha sur la thorie des prob

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Summer Fine Books & Manuscripts

By Potter & Potter Auctions

Jul 9, 2026

Set Reminder 2026-07-09 11:00:00 2026-07-09 11:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Summer Fine Books & Manuscripts https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/potter-potter/summer-fine-books-manuscripts-22825
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• Lot Description

  [MATHEMATICS]. QUETELET, Lambert Adolphe Jacques (1796-1874). Lettres Son Altesse Royale le Duc regnant de Saxe-Coburg et Gotha sur la thorie des probabilits, applique aux science morales et politiques. Brussels: M. Haney, 1846. Large 8vo. [6], iv, 450 pp. Original printed wrappers. FIRST EDITION IN THE SCARCE ORIGINAL WRAPPERS, OF "QUETELET'S BEST RESEARCHES ON THE APPLICATION OF PROBABILITY TO THE PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES" (CAJORI).

  Condition

  Wrappers toned, soiled and edgeworn, front and rear wrappers detached (yet present), affixed to the bottom portion of the front wrapper is a printed slip for the Paris publisher, Jules Renouard, who apparently acquired part of the edition. Wrappers brown, spine split and creased in several places, text creased with occasional foxing. Still, a good example of this fragile item. Housed in modern cloth clamshell case.  

• Provenance

  Quetelet (1796-1874) was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. He founded and directed the Brussels Observatory. He became interested in the young science of probability and statistics as an astronomer to explain measurement errors, but became one of the first to see its applications to the social sciences. He understood the complexities of social phenomena and became interested in using what he called "social physics" as a tool to explain crime rates, marital rates, suicide rates, etc. In 1835, he published Sur l'homme et le dveloppement des ses faculties, essai d'une physique sociale, which made him famous throughout Europe. These letters to the Grand Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha are an important sequel to that work. Cajori calls them "Quetelet's best researches on the application of probability to the physical and social sciences" and notes: "He laid emphasis on the 'law of large numbers,' which was advanced also by the Frenchman S.D. Poisson and discussed by the German W. Lexis (1877), the Scandinavians H. Westergaard and Carl Charlier, and the Russian Pafnuti Liwowich Chebichev (1821-1894) of the University of Petrograd." Quetelet's work was enormously influential to Francis Galton, who expanded upon it in Hereditary Genius. Cajori, History of Mathematics, p. 380. Stigler, History of Statistics, p. 392. Goldsmiths' 36193. 

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