1888 in science

List of years in science (Table)
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The year 1888 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Event

• International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry, in Glasgow, Scotland

Astronomy

• January 3 - The 91 cm refracting telescope at Lick Observatory is first used. The James Lick telescope is the largest refractor in the world at this time, and the observatory is the first established at the top of a mountain.
• The 76 cm refracting telescope is completed at Nice Observatory.

Biology

• Seventeen biologists found the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, which will become a major center of applied research.
• Peter Hermann Stillmark describes the isolation of ricin, thus founding the field of lectinology.

Chemistry

• Methyl isocyanate is discovered.
• Henri-Louis Le Chatelier states that the response of a chemical system perturbed from equilibrium will be to counteract the perturbation.

Geography

• January 27 - The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C. by Gardiner Greene Hubbard.

Mathematics

• The American Mathematical Society is founded by Thomas Fiske.
• Hilbert's basis theorem is first proved by David Hilbert.
• Francis Galton introduces the concept of correlation in statistics.
• Richard Dedekind publishes Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen? ("What are numbers and what should they be?") which includes his definition of an infinite set.
• Sofia Kovalevskaya discovers the 'Kovalevskaya Top'.

Medicine

• Emile Roux and Alexandre Yersin isolate diphtheria toxin

Meteorology

• The global atmospheric temperature returns to normal, five years after the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa (Krakatau). The volcanic dust veil, that had created spectacular atmospheric effects, also acted as a solar-radiation filter, lowering global temperatures by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius in the year after the eruption.

Neuroscience

• Giovanni Martinotti describes cortical cells later known as Martinotti cells.

Physics

• Heinrich Rudolf Hertz discovers radio waves.

Technology

• August 10 - Gottlieb Daimler flies in an airship designed by Dr. Frederich Wölfert powered by a Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft-built petrol engine.
• September 4 - George Eastman registers the trademark Kodak, and receives a patent for his camera which uses roll film.
• October 14 - Louis Le Prince shoots the first recorded film, Roundhay Garden Scene, in Leeds, England, using a single lens camera and Eastman paper film.
• December 7 - John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic bicycle tyre.
• Emile Berliner invents the gramophone record.
• Nikola Tesla patents the induction motor.
• The ballpoint pen is invented by John Loud.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Thomas Henry Huxley
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Henry Benedict Medlicott

Births

• February 14 - Robert Remak (d. 1942), mathematician.
• February 17 - Otto Stern (d. 1969), physicist, Nobel laureate in Physics in 1943.
• June 12 - Zygmunt Janiszewski (d. 1920), mathematician.
• August 13 - John Logie Baird (d. 1946), inventor.
• November 15 - Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (d. 1957), meteorologist and oceanographer.

Deaths

• January 19 - Anton de Bary (b. 1831), surgeon, botanist, microbiologist, and mycologist.
• March 9 - Robert Gordon Latham (b. 1812), ethnologist and philologist.
• March 15 - Squire Whipple (b. 1804), civil engineer.
• May 21 - Friedrich Gerke (b. 1801), pioneer of telegraphy.
• August 23 - Philip Henry Gosse (b. 1810), science writer.
• August 24 - Rudolf Clausius (b. 1822), physicist.
• September 12 - Richard Anthony Proctor (b. 1837), astronomer.
• November 1 - Nikolai Przhevalsky (b. 1839), explorer.