1740 in science

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The year 1740 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Metallurgy

Jacques-Barthélemy Micheli du Crest creates a spirit thermometer, making use of two fixed points, 0 for "Temperature of earth" based on a cave at Paris Observatory and 100 for the heat of boiling water.^[2]
Émilie du Châtelet publishes Institutions de Physique, including a demonstration that the energy of a moving object is proportional to the square of its velocity (E_k = ¹⁄₂mv²).

Henry Hindley of Yorkshire invents a device to cut the teeth of clock wheels.^[3]

June 27 - John Latham, physician, naturalist, "grandfather of Australian ornithology" (died 1837)
July 1 - Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein, mineralogist and discoverer of tellurium (died 1825)
August 26 - Joseph Michel Montgolfier, pioneer balloonist (died 1810)
September 29 - Thomas Percival, reforming physician and medical ethicist (died 1804)
December 24 - Anders Johan Lexell, astronomer and mathematician (died 1784)
unknown - William Smellie, naturalist and encyclopedist (died 1795)

^ Smiles, Samuel (1879). Industrial Biography. p. 99.
^ Hutton, Charles (1815). A Philosophical and Mathematical Dictionary: Volume 2. Weybridge, Surrey: S. Hamilton. p. 509. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lsdJAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false.
^ Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 308. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.