1887 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1887 in science
and technology
involved many 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 many significant events, listed below.
Events
- March 7 - North Carolina State UniversityNorth Carolina State UniversityNorth Carolina State University at Raleigh is a public, coeducational, extensive research university located in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Commonly known as NC State, the university is part of the University of North Carolina system and is a land, sea, and space grant institution...
is established as North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. - September 28 - Start of the Yellow RiverYellow RiverThe Yellow River or Huang He, formerly known as the Hwang Ho, is the second-longest river in China and the sixth-longest in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into...
floods in ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
: 900,000 dead.
Astronomy
- Theodor von OppolzerTheodor von OppolzerTheodor von Oppolzer was an Austrian astronomer and mathematician.The son of the physician Johann Ritter von Oppolzer, Theodor was born in Prague, at the time part of the Austrian Empire. He completed his graduate studies in medicine at the University of Vienna, gaining a Ph.D. in 1865...
's Canon der FinsternisseCanon of EclipsesThe Canon of Eclipses , published in 1887 at the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Vienna by Theodor Ritter von Oppolzer, is a compilation of over 13000 eclipses, including all solar and all umbral lunar eclipses between the years 1207 BC and 2161 CE. It was republished by Dover Books in 1962....
, a compilation of the 8,000 solar and 5,200 lunar eclipseEclipseAn eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object is temporarily obscured, either by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer...
s from 1,200 B.C. until 2,161 A.D., is published posthumously.
Biology
- Jean Pierre MégninJean Pierre MégninJean Pierre Mégnin was a French army veterinarian and entomologist. He is best known for his work with dogs and forensic entomology....
publishes Faune des Tombeaux ("Fauna of the Tombs"), the founding work of modern forensic entomologyForensic entomologyForensic entomology is the application and study of insect and other arthropod biology to criminal matters. It is primarily associated with death investigations; however, it may also be used to detect drugs and poisons, determine the location of an incident, and find the presence and time of the...
. - Sergei WinogradskySergei WinogradskySergei Nikolaievich Winogradsky was a Ukrainian-Russian microbiologist, ecologist and soil scientist who pioneered the cycle of life concept. He discovered the first known form of lithotrophy during his research with Beggiatoa in 1887...
discovers the first known form of lithotrophy during his research with BeggiatoaBeggiatoaBeggiatoa is a genus of bacteria in the order Thiotrichales. They are named after the Italian medic and botanist F.S. Beggiato. The organisms live in sulfur-rich environments...
.
Conservation
- June 23 - The Rocky Mountains Park ActRocky Mountains Park ActThe Rocky Mountains Park Act was enacted on June 23, 1887, by the Parliament of Canada, establishing Banff National Park which was then known as "Rocky Mountains Park". The act was modelled on the Yellowstone Park Act passed by the United States Congress in 1881. The Rocky Mountains Park Act...
becomes law in CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, creating that nation's first national parkNational parkA national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or...
, Banff National ParkBanff National ParkBanff National Park is Canada's oldest national park, established in 1885 in the Rocky Mountains. The park, located 110–180 kilometres west of Calgary in the province of Alberta, encompasses of mountainous terrain, with numerous glaciers and ice fields, dense coniferous forest, and alpine...
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Geophysics
- In HawaiiHawaiiHawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, the Mauna LoaMauna LoaMauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean, and the largest on Earth in terms of volume and area covered. It is an active shield volcano, with a volume estimated at approximately , although its peak is about lower than that...
volcano eruptions subside, having begun in 18431843 in scienceThe year 1843 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* February 5–April 19 - "Great March Comet" observed....
. During the 1887 eruption, about 2½ million tons (2.3 million metric tons) of lava per hour pours out, covering an area of 29 km².
Linguistics
- March 3 - Anne Sullivan begins to teach language to the deaf and blind Helen KellerHelen KellerHelen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree....
. - July 26 - L. L. ZamenhofL. L. ZamenhofLudwig Lazarus Zamenhof December 15, 1859 – April 14, 1917) was the inventor of Esperanto, the most successful constructed language designed for international communication.-Cultural background:...
publishes Lingvo internacia ("International language") under the pseudonymPseudonymA pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Doktoro EsperantoEsperantois the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
".
Medicine
- January 11 - Louis PasteurLouis PasteurLouis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...
's anti-rabiesRabiesRabies is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals. It is zoonotic , most commonly by a bite from an infected animal. For a human, rabies is almost invariably fatal if post-exposure prophylaxis is not administered prior to the onset of severe symptoms...
treatment is defended in the French Academy of Medicine by Dr. Joseph Grancher. - August - The U.S. National Institutes of HealthNational Institutes of HealthThe National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
is founded at the Marine Hospital, Staten Island, NY, as the Laboratory of Hygiene. - October 1 - Hong Kong College of Medicine for ChineseHong Kong College of Medicine for ChineseThe Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese was the first college in Hong Kong to fully adopt and accept Western medical science practices...
founded by Patrick MansonPatrick MansonSir Patrick Manson was a Scottish physician who made important discoveries in parasitology and was the founder of the tropical medicine field....
. - Franz KönigFranz König (surgeon)Franz König was a German surgeon who was a native of Rotenburg an der Fulda. In 1855 he received his doctorate from the University of Marburg, and was later district wound surgeon in Hanau...
publishes "Über freie Körper in den Gelenken" in the journal Deutsche Zeitschrift für Chirurgie, first describing (and naming) the disease Osteochondritis dissecansOsteochondritis dissecansOsteochondritis dissecans , often abbreviated to OCD or OD, is a joint disorder in which cracks form in the articular cartilage and the underlying subchondral bone. OCD is caused by blood deprivation in the subchondral bone. This loss of blood flow causes the subchondral bone to die in a process...
. - The Hospitals AssociationNHS ConfederationThe NHS Confederation is an independent membership organisation in the United Kingdom that represents all types of providers and commissioners of National Health Service services in England. It is the only body to speak for the whole of the NHS on the issues that matter to all those involved in...
establishes the first (non-statutory and voluntary) register of nurses in the United KingdomNursing in the United KingdomNursing in the United Kingdom has a long history, but in its current form probably dates back to the era of Florence Nightingale, who initiated schools of nursing in the latter part of the 19th and early 20th centuries...
.
Physics
- November - The Michelson-Morley experimentMichelson-Morley experimentThe Michelson–Morley experiment was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Its results are generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous ether and in favor of special...
is performed, indicating that the speed of light is independent of motion. - Heinrich Hertz discovers electromagnetismElectromagnetismElectromagnetism is one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. The other three are the strong interaction, the weak interaction and gravitation...
.
Psychology
- November - G. Stanley HallG. Stanley HallGranville Stanley Hall was a pioneering American psychologist and educator. His interests focused on childhood development and evolutionary theory...
founds The American Journal of PsychologyAmerican Journal of PsychologyThe American Journal of Psychology was the first English-language journal devoted primarily to experimental psychology . AJP was founded by the Johns Hopkins University psychologist Granville Stanley Hall in 1887...
. - Richard Hodgson and S. J. Davey, in the course of investigations into popular belief in parapsychologyParapsychologyThe term parapsychology was coined in or around 1889 by philosopher Max Dessoir, and originates from para meaning "alongside", and psychology. The term was adopted by J.B. Rhine in the 1930s as a replacement for the term psychical research...
, publish one of the first descriptions of eyewitness unreliability.
Technology
- March 8 - Everett Horton of ConnecticutConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
patents a fishing rodFishing rodA fishing rod or a fishing pole is a tool used to catch fish, usually in conjunction with the pastime of angling, and can also be used in competition casting. . A length of fishing line is attached to a long, flexible rod or pole: one end terminates in a hook for catching the fish...
of telescoping steel tubes. - March 13 - Chester GreenwoodChester GreenwoodChester Greenwood of Farmington, Maine invented the earmuff in 1873, at the age of 15. He reportedly came up with the idea while ice skating, and had his grandmother sew tufts of fur between loops of wire. His patent was for improved ear protectors...
patents earmuffs. - June 8 - Herman HollerithHerman HollerithHerman Hollerith was an American statistician who developed a mechanical tabulator based on punched cards to rapidly tabulate statistics from millions of pieces of data. He was the founder of one of the companies that later merged and became IBM.-Personal life:Hollerith was born in Buffalo, New...
receives a patent for his punched cardPunched cardA punched card, punch card, IBM card, or Hollerith card is a piece of stiff paper that contains digital information represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions...
calculator. - August - Anna Connelly patents the fire escapeFire escapeA fire escape is a special kind of emergency exit, usually mounted to the outside of a building or occasionally inside but separate from the main areas of the building. It provides a method of escape in the event of a fire or other emergency that makes the stairwells inside a building inaccessible...
. - November 8 - Emile BerlinerEmile BerlinerEmile Berliner or Emil Berliner was a German-born American inventor. He is best known for developing the disc record gramophone...
is granted a patent for his GramophonePhonographThe phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
. - The comptometerComptometerThe comptometer was the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator, patented in the USA by Dorr E. Felt in 1887.A key-driven calculator is extremely fast because each key adds or subtracts its value to the accumulator as soon as it is pressed and a skilled operator can enter all...
is patented by Dorr Eugene Felt. - Adolf Gaston Eugen FickAdolf Gaston Eugen FickAdolf Gaston Eugen Fick was a German ophthalmologist who invented the contact lens. He was the nephew of the German physiologist Adolf Eugen Fick, and the son of the German anatomy professor Franz Ludwig Fick....
invents the contact lensContact lensA contact lens, or simply contact, is a lens placed on the eye. They are considered medical devices and can be worn to correct vision, for cosmetic or therapeutic reasons. In 2004, it was estimated that 125 million people use contact lenses worldwide, including 28 to 38 million in the United...
, made of a type of brown glass. - Thomas Stevens (cyclist)Thomas Stevens (cyclist)Thomas Stevens was the first person to circle the globe by bicycle. He rode a large-wheeled Ordinary, also known as a penny-farthing, from April 1884 to December 1886...
becomes the first man to bicycleBicycleA bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
around the world.
Awards
- June - William Armstrong created 1st Baron Armstrong of CragsideCragsideCragside is a country house in the civil parish of Cartington in Northumberland, England. It was the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectric power...
, the first engineerEngineerAn engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
to be raised to the Peerage of the United KingdomPeerage of the United KingdomThe Peerage of the United Kingdom comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Act of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great Britain... - Copley MedalCopley MedalThe Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
: 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... - Wollaston MedalWollaston MedalThe Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...
for Geology: John Whitaker Hulke
Births
- June 22 - Julian HuxleyJulian HuxleySir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...
(d. 19751975 in scienceThe year 1975 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* April 19 - Aryabhata, India's first satellite, is launched using Soviet boosters....
), BritishUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
biologistBiologistA biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
and populariser of science. - August 18 - Erwin SchrödingerErwin SchrödingerErwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger was an Austrian physicist and theoretical biologist who was one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, and is famed for a number of important contributions to physics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1933...
(d. 19611961 in scienceThe year 1961 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space exploration:* January 31 - Ham, a 37-pound male chimpanzee, is rocketed into space in a test of the Project Mercury capsule designed to carry U.S. astronauts into space.* April 12 - Yuri...
), physicistPhysicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
. - November 19 - James B. SumnerJames B. SumnerJames Batcheller Sumner was an American chemist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1946 with John Howard Northrop and Wendell Meredith Stanley.-Biography:...
(d. 19551955 in scienceThe year 1955 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed below.-Astronomy:* January 8 - Penumbral lunar eclipse....
), AmericanUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in ChemistryNobel Prize in ChemistryThe Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, physics, literature,...
. - November 23 - Henry MoseleyHenry MoseleyHenry Gwyn Jeffreys Moseley was an English physicist. Moseley's outstanding contribution to the science of physics was the justification from physical laws of the previous empirical and chemical concept of the atomic number. This stemmed from his development of Moseley's law in X-ray spectra...
(k. 19151915 in scienceThe year 1915 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* Pluto is photographed for the first time but not recognized as a planet....
), physicist. - December 13 - George PólyaGeorge PólyaGeorge Pólya was a Hungarian mathematician. He was a professor of mathematics from 1914 to 1940 at ETH Zürich and from 1940 to 1953 at Stanford University. He made fundamental contributions to combinatorics, number theory, numerical analysis and probability theory...
(d. 19851985 in scienceThe year 1985 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.-Environment:* May 16 – Scientists of the British Antarctic Survey announce discovery of the ozone hole.-Exploration:...
), HungarianHungaryHungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
mathematicianMathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
. - December 22 - Srinivasa RamanujanSrinivasa RamanujanSrīnivāsa Aiyangār Rāmānujan FRS, better known as Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan was a Indian mathematician and autodidact who, with almost no formal training in pure mathematics, made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions...
(d. 19201920 in scienceThe year 1920 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-History of science and technology:* Newcomen Society founded in the United Kingdom for the study of the history of engineering and technology.-Medicine:...
), mathematician.
Deaths
- January 22 - Joseph WhitworthJoseph WhitworthSir Joseph Whitworth, 1st Baronet was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. In 1841, he devised the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for screw threads...
(b. 18031803 in scienceThe year 1803 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Astronomy:* April 26 - A meteorite shower falls on L'Aigle in Normandy; Jean Baptiste Biot demonstrates that they are of extraterrestrial origin.-Botany:...
), mechanical engineer. - August 15 - Julius von HaastJulius von HaastSir Johann Franz "Julius" von Haast was a German geologist. He founded Canterbury Museum at Christchurch.-Biography:...
(b. 18241824 in scienceThe year 1824 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Events:* January 8 - After much controversy, Michael Faraday is finally elected as a member of the Royal Society with only one vote against him.-Astronomy:...
), 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 19 - Spencer Fullerton BairdSpencer Fullerton BairdSpencer Fullerton Baird was an American ornithologist, ichthyologist and herpetologist. Starting in 1850 he was assistant-secretary and later secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C...
(b. 18231823 in scienceThe year 1823 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* Olbers' paradox is described by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers.* December 29 - Great Comet of 1823 first observed.-Chemistry:...
), ornithologist and ichthyologist. - August 19 - Alvan ClarkAlvan ClarkAlvan Clark , born in Ashfield, Massachusetts, the descendant of a Cape Cod whaling family of English ancestry, was an American astronomer and telescope maker. He was a portrait painter and engraver , and at the age of 40 became involved in telescope making...
(b. 18041804 in scienceThe year 1804 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space science:* April 5 - High Possil meteorite falls in Scotland.* September 1 - Karl Ludwig Harding discovers the asteroid Juno.-Botany:...
), telescope manufacturer. - October 7 (O.S. September 25) - Lev TsenkovskyLev TsenkovskyLev Semyonovich Tsenkovsky was a Polish-Ukrainian botanist, protozoologist, bacteriologist, who was mostly active in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire...
(b. 18221822 in scienceThe year 1822 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Geology:* Friedrich Mohs introduces his system of classifying minerals and his scale of mineral hardness....
), biologistBiologistA biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...
. - October 17 - Gustav KirchhoffGustav KirchhoffGustav Robert Kirchhoff was a German physicist who contributed to the fundamental understanding of electrical circuits, spectroscopy, and the emission of black-body radiation by heated objects...
(b. 18241824 in scienceThe year 1824 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Events:* January 8 - After much controversy, Michael Faraday is finally elected as a member of the Royal Society with only one vote against him.-Astronomy:...
), physicistPhysicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
. - November 18 - Gustav FechnerGustav FechnerGustav Theodor Fechner , was a German experimental psychologist. An early pioneer in experimental psychology and founder of psychophysics, he inspired many 20th century scientists and philosophers...
(b. 18011801 in scienceThe year 1801 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* January 1 - Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi makes the first discovery of an asteroid, Ceres, which is briefly considered to be the eighth planet....
), psychologistPsychologistPsychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
.