1850 in science
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The year 1850 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Contents |
[edit] Chemistry
- October 17 - James Young patents a method of distilling paraffin from coal.
[edit] Mathematics
- Thomas Kirkman proposes Kirkman's schoolgirl problem.[1][2]
- J. J. Sylvester originates the term matrix in mathematics.[3][4]
[edit] Medicine
- March - Dr Benjamin Guy Babington founds the London Epidemiological Society.[5]
[edit] Meteorology
- April 3 - British Meteorological Society founded.
[edit] Physics
- Rudolf Clausius publishes his paper on the mechanical theory of heat, which first states the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics.[6]
- Hippolyte Fizeau and E. Gounelle measure the speed of electricity.
- Léon Foucault demonstrates the greater speed of light in air than in water, and establishes that the speed of light in different media is inverse to the refractive indices of the media, using the Fizeau-Foucault apparatus.
- May – John Tyndall and Hermann Knoblauch publish a report on "The magneto-optic properties of crystals, and the relation of magnetism and diamagnetism to molecular arrangement".
[edit] Technology
- July 14 - John Gorrie makes the first public demonstration of his ice-making machine, in Apalachicola, Florida.[7]
[edit] Awards
[edit] Births
- January 15 - Sofia Kovalevskaya (d. 1891), mathematician.
- January 24 - Hermann Ebbinghaus (d. 1909), psychologist.
- February 15 - Sophie Bryant (d. 1922), mathematician and educationalist.
- March 31 - Charles Walcott (d. 1927), paleontologist.
- May 18 - Oliver Heaviside (d. 1925), physicist.
- May 23 - George Claridge Druce (d. 1932), botanist.
- June 6 - Karl Ferdinand Braun (d. 1918), physicist.
- August 25 - Charles Richet (d. 1935), Nobel Prize winner.
[edit] Deaths
- March 27 - Wilhelm Beer (b. 1797), astronomer.
- April 9 - William Prout (b. 1785), chemist.
- May 10 - Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (b. 1778), chemist and physicist.
- December 4 - William Sturgeon (b. 1783), inventor.
[edit] References
- ^ "Query VI". The Lady's and Gentleman's Diary.
- ^ Tahta, Dick (2006). The Fifteen Schoolgirls. Cambridge: Black Apollo Press. ISBN 1900355485.
- ^ London, Edinburgh & Dublin Philosophical Magazine 37 (1850) p. 369 (OED).
- ^ Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London: Quercus. p. 156. ISBN 978-1-84724-008-8.
- ^ Evans, Alun (2001). "Benjamin Guy Babington: Founding President of the London Epidemiological Society". International Journal of Epidemiology 30 (2): 226-230. doi:10.1093/ije/30.2.226. http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/30/2/226.full. Retrieved 2012-02-07.
- ^ Clausius, R. (1850). "Über die bewegende Kraft der Wärme, pt I". Annalen der Physik 79: 368–397. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k15164w/f384.table. Retrieved 2011-04-26."Pt II". ib.: 500–524. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k15164w/f518.table. English translation as "On the Moving Force of Heat, and the Laws regarding the Nature of Heat itself which are deducible therefrom". Philosophical Magazine 2: 1–21, 102–119. 1851. http://www.archive.org/details/londonedinburghd02lond. Retrieved 2011-04-26.
- ^ Burke, James (1978). Connections. London: Macmillan. p. 240. ISBN 0-333-24827-9.
