1857 in science

The year 1857 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• Peter Andreas Hansen's Tables of the Moon are published in London.^[1]

Biology

• Rev. M. J. Berkeley publishes Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany.
• Galen Clark discovers the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias in California.

Chemistry

• Robert Bunsen invents apparatus for measuring effusion.
• Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz proposes that carbon is tetravalent, or forms exactly four chemical bonds.^[2]

Earth sciences

• January 9 – Fort Tejon earthquake on the San Andreas Fault with a moment magnitude of 7.9.^[3]

Exploration

• May 16 – The British North American Exploring Expedition, led by Irish geographer Capt. John Palliser, sets off for a three-year exploration of Western Canada.

Mathematics

• William Rowan Hamilton invents the Icosian game.^[4]

Medicine

• March 12 – Elizabeth Blackwell opens the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.
• Bénédict Morel publishes Traité des dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l'espèce humaine et des causes qui produisent ces variétés maladives.

Technology

• March 23 – Elisha Otis' first elevator is installed (at 488 Broadway).

Publications

• Naturalist P. H. Gosse's creationist text Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot is published in England.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Michel Eugène Chevreul
• Wollaston Medal for geology: Joachim Barrande

Births

• January 20 – Vladimir Bekhterev (died 1927), Russian psychologist.
• March 27 – Carl Pearson (died 1936), English mathematician.
• April 30 – Eugen Bleuler (died 1939), Swiss psychiatrist.
• May 13 – Ronald Ross (died 1932), Indian-born British physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1902.
• May 15 – Williamina Fleming (died 1911), Scottish-born American astronomer
• August 8 – Henry Fairfield Osborn (died 1935), American paleontologist.
• November 1 – John Joly (died 1933), Anglo-Irish physicist.
• November 27 – Charles Sherrington (died 1952), English neurophysiologist and bacteriologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1932.

Deaths

• January 2 – Andrew Ure (born 1778), Scottish industrial chemist and encyclopaedist
• May 23 – Augustin Louis Cauchy (born 1789), French mathematician.
• June 21 – Louis Jacques Thénard (born 1777), French chemist.
• July 13 – Karl Wilhelm Gottlob Kastner (born 1783), German chemist.
• July 29 – Charles Lucien Bonaparte (born 1803), French naturalist.
• August 12 – William Conybeare (born 1787), English geologist.
• December 15 – George Cayley (born 1773), English aviation pioneer.
• December 17 – Francis Beaufort (born 1774) British hydrographer.
• Elizabeth Philpot (born 1780), English paleontologist.

References