1755 in science

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The year 1755 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• Immanuel Kant develops the nebular hypothesis.

Chemistry

• Joseph Black describes his discovery of carbon dioxide ("fixed air") and magnesium in a paper to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh.

December 2: Fire burns second Eddystone Lighthouse, Rudyerd's wooden cone of 1709.

Earth sciences

• November 1 - An earthquake in Lisbon kills 30,000 inhabitants.
• Publication of De Litteraria expeditione per pontificiam ditionem ad dimetiendos duos meridiani gradus a PP, a description of the measurement of a meridian arc carried out in the Papal States by Ruđer Bošković with Christopher Maire in 1750–2.

Mathematics

• Leonhard Euler's Institutiones calculi differentialis is published.

Technology

• December 2 - The second Eddystone Lighthouse (1709-1755), with a wooden cone, catches fire and burns to the ground; it will be rebuilt in stone.
• While serving as Postmaster General of the northern American colonies, Benjamin Franklin invents a simple odometer, attached to his horse carriage, to help analyze the best routes for delivering the mail.
• approx. date - Thomas Mudge invents the lever escapement for timepieces.

Awards

• Copley Medal: John Huxham

Births

• January 28 - Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, Prussian physician, anatomist, paleontologist and inventor (d. 1830).
• April 11 - James Parkinson, English surgeon (d. 1824).
• June 15 - Antoine François, French chemist (d. 1809)
• October 11 - Fausto Elhuyar, Spanish chemist (d. 1833).
• October 28 - Jacques Labillardière, French naturalist (d. 1834).

Deaths

• May 20 - Johann Georg Gmelin, botanist, natural historian and geographer (b. 1709)