1757 in science

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The year 1757 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• Nicolas Louis de Lacaille publishes his Astronomiae Fundamenta Novissimus, containing a standard catalogue of 398 bright stars with positions corrected for aberration and nutation.
• Tobias Mayer presents accurate tables of the Moon's motion to the Board of Longitude in Great Britain.

Chemistry

• Scottish physician Francis Home publishes The Principles of Agriculture and Vegetation, an early presentation of the chemical principles underlying plant nutrition, in Edinburgh.

Medicine

• December 8 – Opening of the "New Lying-In" or Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, designed by Richard Cassels.
• Albrecht von Haller begins publication of Elementa physiologiae corporis humani in Switzerland.

Physics

• Leonhard Euler publishes his equations for inviscid flow.

Technology

• London instrument maker John Bird makes the first navigational sextant.^[1]
• Benjamin Franklin invents a three-wheel clock movement, which later leads to several variants in the design of pendulum clocks.
• The Grubenmann brothers complete timber arch bridges in Switzerland which include the longest vehicular bridge spans extant at this date:^[2]
  • Crossing the Rhine at Schaffhausen in two spans of 52 m and 59 m (by Hans Ulrich)
  • A single-span of 67 m at Reichenau (by Johannes)

Awards

• Copley Medal: Lord Charles Cavendish

Births

• May 24 – William Charles Wells, Scottish American physician (died 1817)
• June 22 – George Vancouver, English explorer (died 1798)
• July 11 – Johann Matthäus Bechstein, German naturalist (died 1822)
• August 9 – Thomas Telford, Scottish civil engineer (died 1834)
• November 12 – Robert Willan, English dermatologist (died 1812)

Deaths

• January 9
  • Louis Bertrand Castel, French Jesuit mathematician and physicist (born 1688)
  • Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, French scientific populariser (born 1657)
• August 28 – David Hartley, English physician and psychologist (born 1705)
• October 17 – René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, French physicist (born 1683)

References

1. Moskowitz, Saul (1987). "The World's First Sextants" (PDF). Navigation 34: 22–42.
2. Troyano, Leonardo Fernández (2003). Bridge Engineering: a Global Perspective. London: Thomas Telford Publishing. pp. 158–59. ISBN 0-7277-3215-3. Retrieved 2011-08-16.