Dictionary of Physics or an Attempt at an Explanation of the Most Important Concepts and Technical Terms of Natural Philosophy

With this intention, I have endeavored to explain clearly the concepts occurring in this science, to determine precisely the meaning of words, to provide for every individual subject a brief history of the opinions, experiments conducted, and the consequences and conjectures drawn therefrom, to present and prove the most important propositions recognized as certain, to describe the tools necessary for conducting experiments, and everywhere, to the best of my insights and abilities, merely to communicate useful truths while contesting prejudices and imagined knowledge. If only, upon the conclusion of this work, I might be so fortunate as to have contributed something through my modest efforts to the dissemination of a science that is uncommonly dear to me!

Leipzig, at the Jubilate Fair 1787. D. Johann Samuel Traugott Gehler.