1784 in science

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The year 1784 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Biology

Publication of the Annals of Agriculture edited by Arthur Young begins in Great Britain.
Peter Simon Pallas begins publication of Flora Rossica, the first Flora of Russia.

Carl Friedrich Gauss, at the age of 7, pioneers the field of summation with the formula summing 1:n as (n(n+1))/2.

Madame du Coudray, pioneer of modern midwifery in France, retires.
Benjamin Franklin makes the first known specific reference (in a letter) to the wearing of bifocal spectacles.^[1]

The first description of a Pterodactylus fossil is made by Cosimo Alessandro Collini, although he is unable to determine what kind of creature it is.^[2]^[3]^[4]

January 15 - Henry Cavendish's paper to the Royal Society of London, Experiments on Air, reveals the composition of water.^[5]

August 21 - Joseph Bramah receives his first lock patent in London.
Henry Cort of Funtley, England, applies the coal-fired reverbatory furnace to the puddling process for conversion of cast to wrought iron.^[6]

March 12 - William Buckland, English geologist and paleontologist (d. 1856)
June 17 - Andrew Crosse, English 'gentleman scientist', pioneer experimenter in electricity (d. 1855)
July 22 - Friedrich Bessel, German mathematician (d. 1846)

^ The College of Optometrists. "The 'Inventor' of Bifocals?". http://www.college-optometrists.org/en/knowledge-centre/museyeum/online_exhibitions/artgallery/bifocals.cfm. Retrieved 2011-06-21.
^ Collini, C. A. (1784). "Sur quelques Zoolithes du Cabinet d’Histoire naturelle de S.A.S.E. Palatine & de Bavière, à Mannheim". Acta Theodoro-Palatinae Mannheim 5 Pars Physica: 58–103.
^ Taquet, P.; Padian, K. (2004). "The earliest known restoration of a pterosaur and the philosophical origins of Cuvier’s Ossemens Fossiles". Comptes Rendus Palevol 3: 157–175. doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2004.02.002.
^ Unwin, David M. (2006). The Pterosaurs: From Deep Time. New York: Pi Press. ISBN 0-13-146308-X.
^ Cavendish, Henry (1784). "Experiments on Air". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 75: 372–384. JSTOR 106582.
^ Gales, W.K.V. (1981). Ironworking. Princes Risborough. p. 8. ISBN 0-85263-546-X.