1795 in science

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The year 1795 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• December 13 – A meteorite falls to earth at Wold Newton, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the first to be recognised in modern times.

Botany

• National Botanic Gardens (Ireland) opened by the Royal Dublin Society.

Mathematics

• The 18-year-old Carl Friedrich Gauss develops the basis for the method of least squares analysis.^[1]

Medicine

• The British Royal Navy makes the use of lemon juice mandatory to prevent scurvy, largely due to the influence of Gilbert Blane.^[2]

Metrology

• April 7 – The gram is decreed in France to be equal to "the absolute weight of a volume of water equal to the cube of the hundredth part of the metre, at the temperature of melting ice."^[3]

Paleontology

• Georges Cuvier identifies the fossilised bones of a huge animal found in the Netherlands in 1770 as belonging to an extinct reptile.

Technology

• November 30 – Joseph Bramah is granted a British patent for hydraulic machinery, notably the hydraulic press.^[4]

Zoology

• Johann Matthäus Bechstein publishes his treatise on songbirds Naturgeschichte der Stubenvögel ("Natural History of Cage Birds") in Gotha.
• Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire publishes "Histoire des Makis, ou singes de Madagascar", introducing his theory of the unity of organic composition.

Publications

• Leonhard Euler's Letters to a German Princess, On Different Subjects in Physics and Philosophy are first translated into English by Scottish minister Henry Hunter, targeted at women, whom Hunter felt Euler intended to educate.^[5][6]

Awards

• Copley Medal: Jesse Ramsden

Births

• December 8 – Peter Andreas Hansen, Danish astronomer (died 1874)
• December 21
  • Francisco Javier Muñiz, Argentine physician and paleontologist (died 1871)
  • John Russell, English dog breeder (died 1883)

Deaths

• March 21 – Giovanni Arduino, Italian geologist (born 1714)
• July 3 – Antonio de Ulloa, Spanish explorer (born 1716)
• June 9 – François Chopart, French surgeon (born 1743)
• June 24 – William Smellie, Scottish naturalist (born 1740)
• October 1 – Robert Bakewell, English agriculturalist and geneticist (born 1725)

References

1. Not published until 1809.
2. Bown, Stephen R. (2003). Scurvy: How a Surgeon, a Mariner and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail. Penguin Books Australia. p. 222.
3. "Decree on weights and measures". 1795. Archived from the original on 24 September 2008. Retrieved 2 October 2008. Gramme, le poids absolu d'un volume d'eau pure égal au cube de la centième partie du mètre , et à la température de la glace fondante
4. McNeill, Ian (1972). Hydraulic Power. London: Longman. ISBN 0-582-12797-1.
5.  Goodwin, Gordon (1891). "Hunter, Henry". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography 28. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
6. Klyve, Dominic (Spring 2011). "Euler's Letters to a German Princess:Betrayal and Translation" (PDF). Opusculum 3 (1). Retrieved 2013-10-21.