1666 in science

List of years in science (Table)
… 1656 1657 1658 1659 1660 1661 1662 1663 1664 1665 1666 1667 1668 1669 1670 1671 1672 1673 1674 1675 1676 …
Related time period or subjects
… 1663 1664 1665 1666 1667 1668 1669 … … 1630s 1640s 1650s 1660s 1670s 1680s 1690s … … 16th century 17th century 18th century …
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Science more

The year 1666 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Events

Isaac Newton develops differential calculus.
Samuel Morland produces several designs of pocket calculating machine and also publishes A New Method of Cryptography.^[1]

Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight into the component colours of the optical spectrum, assisting understanding of the nature of light.
Robert Hooke and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli both expound gravitation as an attractive force (Hooke’s lecture “On gravity” at the Royal Society of London on March 21; Borelli’s Theoricae Mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deductae, published in Florence later in the year).^[2]

Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, publishes Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, including an attack on Robert Hooke's Micrographia.^[3]

^ Dickinson, H. W. (1970). Sir Samuel Morland: diplomat and inventor 1625–1695. Cambridge: Heffer for the Newcomen Society. ISBN 0-85270-061-X.
^ Wilson, Curtis (1989). "The Newtonian achievement in astronomy". Planetary Astronomy from the Renaissance to the rise of astrophysics: 2A: Tycho Brahe to Newton. Cambridge University Press. p. 239.
^ Fitzmaurice, James (2004). "Cavendish, Margaret, duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne (1623?–1673)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4940. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4940. Retrieved 2011-11-24. Subscription or UK public library membership required