CARNOT Lazare-Nicolas-Marguerite Principes fondamentaux de l’équilibre et du mouvement.

Roberts & Trent, p. 63.

New, enlarged edition, published under this new title (the first edition was published in Dijon in 1782 as Essai sur les Machines).

Lazare Carnot (1753-1823), one of the first members of the newly founded Institut de France, occupied several important posts during the French Revolution including Delegate to Legislature in 1791, member of the Committee of Public Instruction before being elected to the Commitee of Public Safety in 1793 as one of the Ministers of War. Considered, alongside Monge, one of the creators of modern geometry, Carnot is one of the founding members of the École Polytechnique.

“This new edition incorporates recent developments in the field. In the preface Carnot makes reference to Lagrange’s invention of the calculus of variations and the law of least action” (Roberts & Trent).

Nice copy.