1776 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1776 in science
and technology
involved some significant events.
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
involved some significant events.
Botany
- William WitheringWilliam WitheringWilliam Withering was an English botanist, geologist, chemist, physician and the discoverer of digitalis.-Introduction:...
publishes The botanical arrangement of all the vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain, the first flora in EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
based on Linnaean taxonomyLinnaean taxonomyLinnaean taxonomy can mean either of two related concepts:# the particular form of biological classification set up by Carl Linnaeus, as set forth in his Systema Naturæ and subsequent works...
.
Geology
- James KeirJames KeirJames Keir FRS was a Scottish chemist, geologist, industrialist, and inventor, and an important member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham.- Life and work :...
suggests that some rocks, such as those at the Giant's CausewayGiant's CausewayThe Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It is located in County Antrim on the northeast coast of Northern Ireland, about three miles northeast of the town of Bushmills...
, might have been formed by the crystallisation of molten lavaLavaLava refers both to molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption and the resulting rock after solidification and cooling. This molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. When first erupted from a volcanic vent, lava is a liquid at...
.
Births
- February 4 - Gottfried Reinhold TreviranusGottfried Reinhold TreviranusGottfried Reinhold Treviranus was a German naturalist. He was a proponent of the theory of the transmutation of species, a theory of evolution held by some biologists prior to the work of Charles Darwin...
, GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
naturalistNatural historyNatural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
(died 18371837 in scienceThe year 1837 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* August 9 - Edward C. Herrick, in New Haven, Connecticut, identifies the Perseids as an annual phenomenon....
) - February 14 - Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von EsenbeckChristian Gottfried Daniel Nees von EsenbeckChristian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck was a prolific German botanist, physician, zoologist, and natural philosopher. He was a contemporary of Goethe and was born within the lifetime of Linnaeus. He described approximately 7,000 plant species...
, German botanist (died 18581858 in scienceThe year 1858 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Archaeology:* In Luxor, Egypt, the Rhind papyrus is found ; it is sometimes called the Ahmes papyrus for the scribe who wrote it around 1650 BC.-Astronomy:* Donati's Comet, the first comet to be photographed, is...
) - April 1 - Sophie GermainSophie GermainMarie-Sophie Germain was a French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. Despite initial opposition from her parents and difficulties presented by a gender-biased society, she gained education from books in her father's library and from correspondence with famous mathematicians such as...
, mathematicianMathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
(died 18311831 in scienceThe year 1831 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* January 7 - Great Comet of 1831 first observed by John Herapath....
) - August 2 - Friedrich StrohmeyerFriedrich StrohmeyerFriedrich Stromeyer was a German chemist.Stromeyer received his degree from the University of Göttingen in 1800...
, chemistChemistA chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
, discoverer of cadmiumCadmiumCadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, bluish-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Similar to zinc, it prefers oxidation state +2 in most of its compounds and similar to mercury it shows a low...
(died 18351835 in scienceThe year 1835 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* August 5 - First sighting of the return of Comet Halley by Father Dumouchel, director of the Collegio Romano at the Vatican. It is next seen on August 21 by Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve at the...
) - August 6 - Amedeo AvogadroAmedeo AvogadroLorenzo Romano Amedeo Carlo Avogadro di Quaregna e di Cerreto, Count of Quaregna and Cerreto was an Italian savant. He is most noted for his contributions to molecular theory, including what is known as Avogadro's law...
, chemist (died 18561856 in scienceThe year 1856 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Archaeology:* First remains of Neanderthal Man found in the Neandertal Valley of Germany.-Biology:* Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics....
) - October 13 - Peter Barlow, EnglishEnglish peopleThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
mathematician (died 18621862 in scienceThe year 1862 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* January 31 - Alvan Graham Clark makes the first observation of Sirius B, a white dwarf star, through an eighteen inch telescope at Northwestern University....
)
Deaths
- June 13 - William BattieWilliam BattieWilliam Battie , 1 September 1703–13 June 1776, was an English physician who published in 1758 the first lengthy book on the treatment of mental illness, A Treatise on Madness, and by extending methods of treatment to the poor as well as the affluent, helped raise psychiatry to a respectable...
, English psychiatrist (born 17031703 in scienceThe year 1703 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Biology:* Charles Plumier's Nova plantarum Americanarum genera is published in Paris...
or 17041704 in scienceThe year 1704 in science and technology involved some significant events.-General:* John Harris publishes the first edition of the Lexicon Technicum, an encyclopedic dictionary of science.-Astronomy:* approx...
) - June 20 - Benjamin HuntsmanBenjamin HuntsmanBenjamin Huntsman was an English inventor and manufacturer of cast or crucible steel.-Biography:Huntsman was born the third son of a Quaker farmer in Epworth, Lincolnshire. His parents were Germans who had emigrated only a few years before his birth.Huntsman started business as a clock, lock and...
, English inventor and manufacturer (born 17041704 in scienceThe year 1704 in science and technology involved some significant events.-General:* John Harris publishes the first edition of the Lexicon Technicum, an encyclopedic dictionary of science.-Astronomy:* approx...
) - November 17 - James FergusonJames Ferguson (1710-1776)James Ferguson was a Scottish astronomer and instrument maker.-Biography:Ferguson was born near Rothiemay in Banffshire of humble parents. Acoording to his autobiography, he learnt to read by hearing his father teach his elder brother, and with the help of an old woman was able to read quite well...
, Scottish astronomer (born 17101710 in scienceThe year 1710 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Events:* The Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala is founded in Uppsala, Sweden, as the Collegium curiosorum .-Physiology and medicine:...
)