Beschreibung:

CURIE, Pierre (1859-1906). Thses prsentes la Facult des Sciences de Paris pour obtenir le grade de docteur s sciences physiques...--Proprits magntiques des corps diverses tempratures . Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1895. 8 o (241 x 159 mm). (First and last quires loose.) Original printed wrappers, glassine dust-jacket (spine chipped and torn, some marginal chipping to covers); folding cloth case. Provenance : M. Parney (author's presentation inscription on title-page). PRESENTATION COPY of Pierre Curie's doctoral dissertation, an essential contribution to the study of magnetism. Published the same year as his marriage to Maria Sklodovska, Curie's thesis explores the magnetic properties of substances at various temperatures, "at that time one of the most obscure areas of physics. The results... form the basis of all modern theories of magnetism. Curie divided the substances that were the subject of his experiments into three groups: "(1) ferromagnetic substances, such as iron, that always magnetize to a high degree; (2) low or paramagnetic substances... which magnetize in the same direction as iron but much more weakly; and (3) diamagnetic substances, which include the largest number of elements and compounds, whose very low magnetization is in the inverse direction of that of iron in the same magnetic field" (DSB). Through painstaking and often physically demanding experimentation Curie succeeded in showing that diamagnetism remains constant regardless of exterior circumstances, from which he concluded that it is a specific property of atoms inherent in all matter, resulting from the action of the magnetic field on the moveemnt of the particles inside the atom, whereas ferro- and paramagnetism, which are influenced by temperature, are properties of aggregates of atoms and are closely related. RARE. Waller 11322a; Norman 544.