1857 in science

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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.
• February 3 – Wilhelm Johannsen (died 1927), Danish plant physiologist and geneticist.
• 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.
• October 2 – John Macintyre (died 1928), Scottish laryngologist and pioneer radiographer.
• 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

1. W. T. L. (1875). "Peter Andreas Hansen". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 35: 168–170. doi:10.1093/mnras/35.4.168. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
2. "Archibald Scott Couper and August Kekulé von Stradonitz". Chemical Achievers: The Human Face of Chemical Sciences. Chemical Heritage Foundation. 2005. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
3. "Historic Earthquakes: Fort Tejon, California". United States Geological Survey. 2009-10-21. Archived from the original on 23 June 2011. Retrieved 2011-07-19.
4. Biggs, Norman L.; Lloyd, E. Keith; Wilson, Robin J. (1976). Graph Theory 1736-1936. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0198539010.