Relativity, Thermodynamics and Cosmology (The International Series of Monographs on Physics)

First UK edition, first impression. x, 502, [2].  First edition, first impression.  Original blue cloth boards,  panels framed with blind rules and titles in gilt on the spine.  Boards slightly brushed, gently pushed in at spine ends.  Upper text block edge dust dulled, remaining edges  toned.  Internally there are some light pencil annotations (previous bookseller’s pricing and stock numbers) and a few small spots on the endpapers  else neat, clean, bright and tight.  It is original paper dust wrapper, unevenly faded and toned to brittle in places, chipped and rubbed on edges and folds but generally clean and complete,  crudely price clipped.

Richard Chace Tolman (1884-1948) was a mathematical physicist who made a significant contribution to statistical mechanics and cosmology.  He conceived the theory of relativistic mass and together with Thomas Dale Stewart, demonstrated that electricity consists of electrons flowing through a conductor.  This, his 1934 monograph on Relativity, Thermodynamics and Cosmology, was the major publication of his career, In it he sets out how black body thermal radiation in an expanding universe results in cooling and, for the first time, documents and explains how a closed universe could possess zero energy.