1828 in science

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The year 1828 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• Félix Savary computes the first orbit of a visual double star when he calculates the orbit of the double star Xi Ursae Majoris.

Biochemistry

• Urea becomes the first organic compound to be artificially synthesised, by Friedrich Wöhler, potentially discrediting a cornerstone of vitalism, the belief that life is not subject to the laws of science in the way inanimate objects are.

Biology

• April 27 – London Zoo opens in Regent's Park for members of the Zoological Society of London.^[1]
• Karl Ernst von Baer lays the foundations of the science of comparative embryology with his book Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere.
• Martin Lichtenstein publishes a monograph on the Dipodidae, Über die Springmäuse, in Berlin.
• Belfast Botanic Gardens open.

Chemistry

• Jöns Jakob Berzelius produces a table of atomic weights and discovers thorium.
• Friedrich Wöhler synthesizes urea, thereby establishing that organic compounds could be produced from inorganic starting materials, disproving the theory of vitalism.^[2]

Medicine

• February 19 – The Boston Society for Medical Improvement is established in the United States.
• April 17 – Royal Free Hospital, established as the London General Institution for the Gratuitous Care of Malignant Diseases by surgeon William Marsden, opens.
• December 24 – Burke and Hare murders: William Burke is sentenced to hang for his part in the murder of 17 victims to provide bodies for dissection by Edinburgh anatomist Robert Knox.
• F. Maury publishes Traité Complet de l'Art du Dentiste, the first handbook of dentistry.^[3]

Paleontology

• January 7 – Rev. Henry Duncan describes his discovery of the fossil footmarks of quadrupeds (Chelichnus duncani) in Permian red sandstone in south west Scotland, the first scientific report of a fossil track.^[4]
• December – Mary Anning discovers Britain's first pterosaur fossil at Lyme Regis on the south coast of England.
• Adolphe Theodore Brongniart publishes Prodrome d'une histoire des Végétaux Fossils, a study of fossil plants.

Physics

• Self-taught English mathematician George Green publishes An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism^[5] in Nottingham, the first mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism, introducing a form of divergence theorem (a version of Green's theorem), the idea of potential theory, and the concept of what will come to be called Green's functions.^[6][7]
• Irish astronomer William Rowan Hamilton publishes Theory of Systems of Rays.

Technology

• October 1 – James Beaumont Neilson of Scotland patents the hot blast process for ironmaking.^[8]
• Ányos Jedlik creates the world's first electric motor.
• The brothers John and Charles Deane produce the first diving helmet by adaptation of a smoke helmet produced for them by Augustus Siebe.^[9]
• Scottish architect Peter Nicholson sets out a method of preparing stones for construction of a helicoidal skew arch.^[10][11][12]

Awards

• Copley Medal: not awarded

Births

• April 17 – Sampson Gamgee (died 1886), Tuscan-born English surgeon.
• March 24 – Jules Verne (died 1905), French science fiction author.
• September 15 – Aleksandr Butlerov (died 1886), Russian chemist.
• October 31 – Joseph Swan (died 1914), English physicist.
• November 22 – Lydia Shackleton (died 1914), Irish botanical artist.

Deaths

• March 17 – James Edward Smith (born 1759), English botanist.
• March 23 – David Friesenhausen (born 1756), German-Hungarian-Jewish rabbi, mathematician and astronomer.
• July 5 – Andrew Duncan (born 1744), Scottish physician.
• August 8 – Carl Peter Thunberg (born 1743), Swedish botanist.
• August 22 – Franz Joseph Gall (born 1758), German-born neuroanatomist.
• December 22 – William Hyde Wollaston (born 1766), English chemist.

References

1. "April 27". Today in Science History. Retrieved 2011-12-20.
2. "Justus von Liebig and Friedrich Wöhler". Chemical Achievers: The Human Face of Chemical Sciences. Chemical Heritage Foundation. 2005. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
3. Puschmann, Theodor. Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin 3. Jena. p. 384.
4. Duncan, Henry (January 1828). "An Account of the Tracks and Footmarks of Animals found impressed on Sandstone in the Quarry of Cornockle Muir in Dumfriesshire". Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 11 (1): 194–209. Retrieved 2016-04-17. Published 1831.
5. Green, George (1828). An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism. Nottingham: T. Wheelhouse. Retrieved 2013-11-12.
6. Ferrers, N. M. (ed.). Mathematical papers of the late George Green.
7. Cannell, D. M. (1999). "George Green: An Enigmatic Mathematician". American Mathematical Monthly 106 (2): 136–151. doi:10.2307/2589050.
8. Gale, W.K.V. (1981). Ironmaking. Princes Risborough: Shire Publications. p. 22. ISBN 0-85263-546-X.
9. Bevan, John (1996). The Infernal Diver: the lives of John and Charles Deane, their invention of the diving helmet and its first application... London: Submex. pp. 28–33. ISBN 0-9508242-1-6.
10. Nicholson, Peter (1828). A Popular and Practical Treatise on Masonry and Stone-cutting. London: Thomas Hurst, Edward Chance & Company. pp. 39–60.
11. Welch, Henry (1837). Loudon, John Claudius, ed. "On the Construction of Oblique Arches". Architectural Magazine (London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman) IV: 90. The stones were cut, or dressed, previously to the erection of the centre
12. Schofield, Reginald B. (2000). Benjamin Outram, 1764–1805: An Engineering Biography. Cardiff: Merton Priory Press. pp. 149–154. ISBN 1-898937-42-7.