1817 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1817 in science
and technology
involved some significant events, listed below.
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, listed below.
Chemistry
- Discovery 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...
by Friedrich StrohmeyerFriedrich StrohmeyerFriedrich Stromeyer was a German chemist.Stromeyer received his degree from the University of Göttingen in 1800...
. - Discovery of lithiumLithiumLithium is a soft, silver-white metal that belongs to the alkali metal group of chemical elements. It is represented by the symbol Li, and it has the atomic number 3. Under standard conditions it is the lightest metal and the least dense solid element. Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly...
by Johann Arfvedson. - Discovery of seleniumSeleniumSelenium is a chemical element with atomic number 34, chemical symbol Se, and an atomic mass of 78.96. It is a nonmetal, whose properties are intermediate between those of adjacent chalcogen elements sulfur and tellurium...
by Jöns Jakob BerzeliusJöns Jakob BerzeliusJöns Jacob Berzelius was a Swedish chemist. He worked out the modern technique of chemical formula notation, and is together with John Dalton, Antoine Lavoisier, and Robert Boyle considered a father of modern chemistry...
. - Pierre-Joseph Pelletier and Joseph Bienaimé CaventouJoseph Bienaimé CaventouJoseph Bienaimé Caventou was a French chemist.He was a professor at the École de Pharmacie in Paris. He collaborated with Pierre-Joseph Pelletier in a Parisian laboratory located behind an apothecary. He was a pioneer in the use of mild solvents to isolate a number of active ingredients from...
isolate chlorophyllChlorophyllChlorophyll is a green pigment found in almost all plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. Its name is derived from the Greek words χλωρος, chloros and φύλλον, phyllon . Chlorophyll is an extremely important biomolecule, critical in photosynthesis, which allows plants to obtain energy from light...
. - Leopold GmelinLeopold GmelinLeopold Gmelin was a German chemist.Gmelin was the son of Johann Friedrich Gmelin. He studied medicine and chemistry at Göttingen, Tübingen and Vienna, and in 1813 began to lecture on chemistry at Heidelberg, where in 1814 he was appointed extraordinary-, and in 1817 ordinary-, professor of...
begins publication of his Handbuch der theoretischen Chemie.
Medicine
- First cholera pandemicFirst cholera pandemicThe first cholera pandemic, also known as the first Asiatic cholera pandemic or Asiatic cholera, lasted from 1817 to 1824. While cholera had spread across India many times previously, this outbreak went further; it reached as far as China and the Caspian Sea before receding...
originates in IndiaIndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. - James ParkinsonJames ParkinsonJames Parkinson was an English apothecary surgeon, geologist, paleontologist, and political activist. He is most famous for his 1817 work, An Essay on the Shaking Palsy in which he was the first to describe "paralysis agitans", a condition that would later be renamed Parkinson's disease by...
publishes An Essay on the Shaking Palsy, describing "paralysis agitans", the condition which will become known as Parkinson's diseaseParkinson's diseaseParkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
.
Technology
- March - Ackermann steering geometryAckermann steering geometryAckermann steering geometry is a geometric arrangement of linkages in the steering of a car or other vehicle designed to solve the problem of wheels on the inside and outside of a turn needing to trace out circles of different radius...
invented by Georg Lankensperger. - July 10 - David BrewsterDavid BrewsterSir David Brewster KH PRSE FRS FSA FSSA MICE was a Scottish physicist, mathematician, astronomer, inventor, writer and university principal.-Early life:...
patentPatentA patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
s the kaleidoscopeKaleidoscopeA kaleidoscope is a circle of mirrors containing loose, colored objects such as beads or pebbles and bits of glass. As the viewer looks into one end, light entering the other end creates a colorful pattern, due to the reflection off the mirrors...
.
Births
- June 30 - Joseph Dalton HookerJoseph Dalton HookerSir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI, CB, MD, FRS was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the 19th century. Hooker was a founder of geographical botany, and Charles Darwin's closest friend...
(d. 19111911 in scienceThe year 1911 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space science:* June 28 - The Nakhla meteorite lands in the area of Alexandria, Egypt, purportedly killing a dog.-Exploration:...
), botanist. - July 15 - John Fowler (d. 18981898 in scienceThe year 1898 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Chemistry:* William Ramsay and Morris Travers discover Neon, Krypton and Xenon ....
), civil engineerCivil engineerA civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
. - September 10 - Richard SpruceRichard SpruceRichard Spruce was an English botanist. One of the great Victorian botanical explorers, Spruce spent approximately 15 years exploring the Amazon from the Andes to the mouth, and was one of the first Europeans to visit many of the places where he collected specimens.The plants and objects collected...
(d. 18931893 in scienceThe year 1893 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* Henry Luke Bolley discovers a method of treating smut with formaldehyde.-Exploration:...
), botanist - October 10 - Christoph Heinrich Buys-Ballot (d. 18901890 in scienceThe year 1890 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* Francis Galton announces a statistical demonstration of the uniqueness and classifiability of individual human fingerprints....
), meteorologist. - October 17 - Alfred Des CloizeauxAlfred Des CloizeauxAlfred Louis Olivier Legrand Des Cloizeaux was a French mineralogist.Des Cloizeaux was born at Beauvais, in the department of Oise. He studied with Jean-Baptiste Biot at the Collège de France. He became professor of mineralogy at the École Normale Supérieure and afterwards at the Muséum National...
(d. 18971897 in scienceThe year 1897 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Mathematics:* David Hilbert unifies the field of algebraic number theory with his treatise Zahlbericht.-Medicine:...
), mineralogist.
Deaths
- January 1 - Martin Heinrich KlaprothMartin Heinrich KlaprothMartin Heinrich Klaproth was a German chemist.Klaproth was born in Wernigerode. During a large portion of his life he followed the profession of an apothecary...
(b. 17431743 in scienceThe year 1743 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Astronomy:* November 29 - Discovery of C/1743 X1, the 'Great Comet of 1744' , by Jan de Munck at Middelburg and subsequently by de Chéseaux and Klinkenberg.-Geology:...
), 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...
. - April 12 - Charles MessierCharles MessierCharles Messier was a French astronomer most notable for publishing an astronomical catalogue consisting of deep sky objects such as nebulae and star clusters that came to be known as the 110 "Messier objects"...
(b. 17301730 in scienceThe year 1730 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Physics:* The Reaumur scale is developed by French naturalist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, with 0° = the freezing point of water and 80° = the boiling point.-Technology:...
), astronomerAstronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
. - June 11 - William GregorWilliam GregorWilliam Gregor was the British clergyman and mineralogist who discovered the elemental metal titanium.-Early years:...
(b. 17611761 in scienceThe year 1761 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* June 6 - The first transit of Venus since Edmond Halley suggested that its observation could determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Joseph-Nicolas Delisle set up a 62-station network for...
), mineralogist. - July 28 - Abraham Gottlob WernerAbraham Gottlob WernerAbraham Gottlob Werner , was a German geologist who set out an early theory about the stratification of the Earth's crust and coined the word Neptunism...
(b. 17491749 in scienceThe year 1749 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Astronomy:* Pierre Bouguer publishes in Paris, describing some of the results of his work with Charles Marie de La Condamine on the French Geodesic Mission to Peru to measure a degree of the meridian arc near the...
), geologistGeologistA geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...
. - August 7 - Pierre Samuel du Pont de NemoursPierre Samuel du Pont de NemoursPierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours was a French nobleman, writer, economist, and government official, who was the father of Eleuthère Irénée du Pont, the founder of E.I...
(b. 17391739 in scienceThe year 1739 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Exploration:* January 1 - Bouvet Island is discovered by French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier in the South Atlantic Ocean.-Mathematics:...
), industrialist. - November 7 - Jean-André DelucJean-André DelucJean-André Deluc or de Luc was a Swiss geologist and meteorologist.-Life:He was born at Geneva, descended from a family which had emigrated from Lucca and settled at Geneva in the 15th century...
(b. 17271727 in scienceThe year 1727 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Astronomy:* Maharaja Jai Singh II begins construction of the Jantar Mantar observatory at Jaipur.-Biology:* Rev...
), geologist.