1886 in science

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The year 1886 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

History of science

• Dugald Clerk publishes The Gas and Oil Engine in London.

Medicine

• The classic descriptions of Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease are published by Jean-Martin Charcot and his pupil Pierre Marie in Paris and by Howard H. Tooth in London.
• Dr Richard von Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie ("Sexual Psychopathy: a Clinical-Forensic Study") is published in Stuttgart.
• Dr Thomas Allinson's popular book A System of Hygienic Medicine is published in England, promoting health through natural diet and exercise rather than orthodox medicine.
• Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women is founded by Dr Sophia Jex-Blake.

Metallurgy

• July 9 - Charles Hall files a United States patent for the Hall–Héroult process for converting alumina into aluminum by electrolysis.

Physics

• November 11 - Heinrich Hertz verifies at the University of Karlsruhe the existence of electromagnetic waves.

Technology

• July 3 - Ottmar Mergenthaler's Linotype machine is introduced at the New-York Tribune.
• September 21 - William Stanley, Jr. patents the induction coil in the United States, the first practical alternating current transformer device.
• October 31 - Opening of Dom Luís Bridge, Porto, a two-hinged double-deck arch bridge across the Douro River in Portugal designed by Téophile Seyrig. Its main span of 172 metres (564 ft) will remain the world's longest in iron.
• Gottlieb Daimler produces the first motorboat, Neckar, in Germany.
• Herbert Akroyd Stuart produces his first prototype heavy oil engines, in England.
• Schuyler Wheeler produces the first electric fan, in the United States.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Franz Neumann
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Alfred Des Cloizeaux

Births

• January 28 - Hidetsugu Yagi, Japanese electrical engineer (d. 1976)
• March 7 - G. I. Taylor, English physicist (d. 1975)
• April 5 - Frederick Lindemann, German-born British physicist (d. 1957)
• September 26 - Archibald Hill, English physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1977)
• November 20 - Karl von Frisch, Austrian ethologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1982)
• December 9 - Clarence Birdseye, American founder of the modern frozen food industry (d. 1956)

Deaths

• July 1 - Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich, German mineralogist and geologist (b. 1806)
• August 17 - Aleksandr Butlerov, Russian chemist (b. 1828)
• November 14 - Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois, French mineralogist and geologist (b. 1820).
• December 26 - Theodor von Oppolzer, Austrian astronomer (b. 1841)