1777 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1777 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.
Mathematics
- Leonhard EulerLeonhard EulerLeonhard Euler was a pioneering Swiss mathematician and physicist. He made important discoveries in fields as diverse as infinitesimal calculus and graph theory. He also introduced much of the modern mathematical terminology and notation, particularly for mathematical analysis, such as the notion...
introduces the symbol i to represent the square rootSquare rootIn mathematics, a square root of a number x is a number r such that r2 = x, or, in other words, a number r whose square is x...
of -1.
Births
- February 12 - Bernard CourtoisBernard CourtoisBernard Courtois, also spelled Barnard Courtois, was a French chemist born in Dijon, France.- Early life :...
, chemist (died 18381838 in scienceThe year 1838 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel makes the first accurate measurement of distance to a star, 61 Cygni, using parallax...
) - April 30 - Carl Friedrich GaussCarl Friedrich GaussJohann Carl Friedrich Gauss was a German mathematician and scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy and optics.Sometimes referred to as the Princeps mathematicorum...
, mathematician (died 18551855 in scienceThe year 1855 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Events:* Opening of Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule in Zurich, Switzerland.-Biology:...
) - May 4 - Louis Jacques ThénardLouis Jacques ThénardLouis Jacques Thénard , was a French chemist.His father, a poor peasant, managed to have him educated at the academy of Sens, and sent him at the age of sixteen to study pharmacy in Paris. There he attended the lectures of Antoine François Fourcroy and Louis Nicolas Vauquelin...
, chemist (died 18571857 in scienceThe year 1857 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* Rev. M. J. Berkeley publishes Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany.-Chemistry:* Robert Bunsen invents apparatus for measuring effusion....
) - August 14 - Hans Christian ØrstedHans Christian ØrstedHans Christian Ørsted was a Danish physicist and chemist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, an important aspect of electromagnetism...
, physicist (died 18511851 in scienceThe year 1851 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* February - First public exhibition of a Foucault pendulum, at the Meridian of the Paris Observatory, demonstrating the Earth's rotation...
)
Deaths
- September 22 - John BartramJohn Bartram*Hoffmann, Nancy E. and John C. Van Horne, eds., America’s Curious Botanist: A Tercentennial Reappraisal of John Bartram 1699-1777. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 243. ....
, naturalist and explorer considered the "father of American botany" (born 16991699 in scienceThe year 1699 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Exploration:* approx. date - Sir Isaac Newton develops a reflecting quadrant.-Paleontology:...
) - December 7 - Albrecht von HallerAlbrecht von HallerAlbrecht von Haller was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet.-Early life:He was born of an old Swiss family at Bern. Prevented by long-continued ill-health from taking part in boyish sports, he had the more opportunity for the development of his precocious mind...
, Swiss anatomist and physiologist (born 17081708 in scienceThe year 1708 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Medicine:* Herman Boerhaave publishes Institutiones medicae, one of the earliest textbooks on physiology.-Technology:...
)