1749 in science

List of years in science (Table)
… 1739 1740 1741 1742 1743 1744 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 1759 …
Related time period or subjects
… 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 1752 … … 1710s 1720s 1730s 1740s 1750s 1760s 1770s … … 17th century 18th century 19th century …
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Science more

The year 1749 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• Pierre Bouguer publishes La figure de la terre in Paris, describing some of the results of his work with Charles Marie de La Condamine on the French Geodesic Mission to Peru (begun in 1735) to measure a degree of the meridian arc near the equator.

Biology

• Georges-Louis Leclerc, afterwards Comte du Buffon, begins publication of his Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière.

Mathematics

• April 12 - Euler produces the first proof of Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares, based on infinite descent.

Institutions

• April 12 - Official opening of the Radcliffe Library in Oxford, built under the will of the physician John Radcliffe (d. 1714) (although it does not become a primarily science library until 1810).
• Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin appointed Secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, a position he will hold until his death in 1783.

Awards

• Copley Medal: John Harrison

Births

• March 23 - Pierre-Simon Laplace, French mathematician and astronomer (d. 1827)
• May 17 - Edward Jenner, English physician, inventor of the smallpox vaccine (d. 1823)
• September 25 - Abraham Gottlob Werner, German geologist (d. 1817)

Deaths

• September 10 - Émilie du Châtelet, French mathematician and physicist (b. 1706)
• December 23 - Mark Catesby, English naturalist (b. 1683)