1823 in science

List of years in science (table)
... 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819 ... 1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 ... 1827 1828 1829 1830 1831 1832 1833 ...
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Philosophy Science +...

The year 1823 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• Olbers' paradox is described by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers.
• Cambridge Observatory established in England.^[1]
• December 29 – Great Comet of 1823 first observed.

Chemistry

• June 17 – Charles Macintosh patents a method of rubberizing fabric to waterproof it.^[2]

Exploration

• February 20 – James Weddell's expedition to Antarctica reaches latitude 74°15' S and longitude 34°16'45" W, the most southerly position that will be attained for more than 80 years.

Medicine

• October 5 – The Lancet founded by Thomas Wakley.
• Theodric Romeyn Beck publishes the first significant American book on forensic medicine, Elements of Medical Jurisprudence in Albany, New York.

Paleontology

• January 23 – In a cave on the Gower Peninsula of Wales, William Buckland inspects the "Red Lady of Paviland", the first identification of a prehistoric (male) human burial. The bones, discovered on December 21 last, are with those of the woolly mammoth, proving that the two had coexisted.^[3]

Physics

• William Sturgeon invents the electromagnet.

Technology

• December 6 – English inventor Samuel Brown obtains his first patent for a hydrogen fuelled compressionless atmospheric gas vacuum engine,^[4] the first internal combustion engine to be applied industrially.^[5]
• First use of a Fresnel lens in a lighthouse optic, at the Cordouan lighthouse on the Gironde estuary.^[6]
• First permanent wire cable suspension bridge, Pont Saint Antoine in Geneva, by Guillaume Henri Dufour, of two 40 m spans.^[7]
• French officer Henri-Joseph Paixhans develops the Paixhans gun, the first naval artillery to fire explosive shells.

Publications

• Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences first published.

Awards

• Copley Medal: John Pond

Births

• January 8 – Alfred Russel Wallace (died 1913), British naturalist who devises the theory of natural selection at the same time as Charles Darwin.
• February 3 – Spencer Fullerton Baird (died 1887), American ornithologist and ichthyologist.
• December 22 – Jean Henri Fabre (died 1915), French entomologist.

Deaths

• January 26 – Edward Jenner (born 1749), English inventor of the vaccine.
• September 23 – Matthew Baillie (born 1761), British pathologist

References

1. Stratton, F. J. M. (1949). "The History of the Cambridge Observatories". Annals of the Solar Physics Observatory, Cambridge 1.
2. Prosser, R. B. (2004). "Macintosh, Charles (1766–1843)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/17541. Retrieved 2011-04-23. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
3. Aldhouse-Green, Stephen (October 2001). "Great Sites: Paviland Cave". British Archaeology (61). Retrieved 2010-07-16.
4. Gill, T. (1826). The Technical Repository, p. 383.
5. Hardenberg, Horst O. (1992). Samuel Morey and his atmospheric engine. SP-922. Warrendale, Pa.: Society of Automotive Engineers. ISBN 1-56091-240-5.
6. Watson, Bruce (August 1999). "Science Makes a Better Lighthouse Lens" Check |url= value (help). Smithsonian 30: 30.
7. Peters, Tom F.; Andrea L. (1987). Transitions in Engineering: Guillaume Henri Dufour and the Early 19th Century Cable Suspension Bridges. Basel: Birkhauser. ISBN 3-7643-1929-1.