1884 in science

List of years in science (Table)
… 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1894 …
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The year 1884 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Chemistry

• J. H. van 't Hoff proposes the Arrhenius equation for the temperature dependence of the reaction rate constant, and therefore, rate of a chemical reaction.

Mathematics

• Gottlob Frege publishes Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik ("The Foundations of Arithmetic") presenting a theory of logicism.

Medicine

• Dr Takaki Kanehiro of the Imperial Japanese Navy conducts a controlled experiment demonstrating that deficient diet is the cause of beriberi, but mistakenly concludes that sufficient protein alone would prevent it.
• Robert Koch and Friedrich Loeffler formulate Koch's postulates on the causal relationship between microbes and diseases.
• Friedrich Loeffler discovers the causative organism for diphtheria, Corynebacterium diphtheriae.
• Friedrich Schultze first describes the disorder that will become known as Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease.
• Among the papers on brain function published by Vladimir Bekhterev is a study on the formation of the human conception of space.

Technology

• October – Hiram Maxim first demonstrates the Maxim gun, the first self-powered machine gun.
• Charles Renard and Arthur Constantin Krebs make a fully controllable free-flight in French Army airship La France with an electric motor.

Other events

• September 24 – Smeaton's Tower opened to the public on Plymouth Hoe as a monument to the history of civil engineering.
• October – International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C. fixes the Greenwich meridian as the world's prime meridian.
• Sophie Bryant becomes the first woman in England to be awarded the degree of Doctor of Science, by the University of London. Also in this year, she is the first woman to publish a paper with the London Mathematical Society.
• Sofia Kovalevskaya is appointed "Professor Extraordinarius" in mathematics at Stockholm University and becomes the editor of Acta Mathematica.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Carl Ludwig
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Albert Jean Gaudry

Births

• January 28
  • Auguste Piccard (d. 1962), Swiss physicist and explorer.
  • Jean Piccard (d. 1963), Swiss-born chemist and explorer.
• July 2 – Alfons Maria Jakob (d. 1931), German neuropathologist
• February 23 – Casimir Funk (d. 1967), Polish biochemist, coined the term vitamin.
• August 31 – George Sarton (d. 1956), Flemish historian of science.
• November 8 – Hermann Rorschach (d. 1922), Swiss psychiatrist.

Deaths

• January 6 – Gregor Mendel (b. 1822), geneticist.
• May 10 – Charles-Adolphe Wurtz (b. 1817), chemist.
• May 13 – Cyrus McCormick (b. 1809), inventor.
• July 18 – Ferdinand von Hochstetter (b. 1829), geologist.
• November 11 – Alfred Brehm (b. 1829), zoologist.
• November 25 – Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe (b. 1818), chemist.