1850 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1850 in science
and technology
involved some significant events, listed below.
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
involved some significant events, listed below.
Chemistry
- October 17 - James Young patents a method of distilling paraffinParaffinIn chemistry, paraffin is a term that can be used synonymously with "alkane", indicating hydrocarbons with the general formula CnH2n+2. Paraffin wax refers to a mixture of alkanes that falls within the 20 ≤ n ≤ 40 range; they are found in the solid state at room temperature and begin to enter the...
from coal.
Mathematics
- Thomas Kirkman proposes Kirkman's schoolgirl problemKirkman's schoolgirl problemKirkman's schoolgirl problem is a problem in combinatorics proposed by Thomas Kirkman in 1850 as Query VI in The Lady's and Gentleman's Diary...
. - J. J. Sylvester originates the term matrixMatrix (mathematics)In mathematics, a matrix is a rectangular array of numbers, symbols, or expressions. The individual items in a matrix are called its elements or entries. An example of a matrix with six elements isMatrices of the same size can be added or subtracted element by element...
in mathematics.
Physics
- Rudolf ClausiusRudolf ClausiusRudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius , was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founders of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle known as the Carnot cycle, he put the theory of heat on a truer and sounder basis...
publishes his paper on the mechanical theory of heat, which first states the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamicsSecond law of thermodynamicsThe second law of thermodynamics is an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. From the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, the law deduced the principle of the increase of entropy and...
. - Hippolyte FizeauHippolyte FizeauArmand Hippolyte Louis Fizeau was a French physicist.-Biography:Fizeau was born in Paris. His earliest work was concerned with improvements in photographic processes. Following suggestions by François Arago, Léon Foucault and Fizeau collaborated in a series of investigations on the interference of...
and E. Gounelle measure the speed of electricityElectricityElectricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
. - Léon FoucaultLéon FoucaultJean Bernard Léon Foucault was a French physicist best known for the invention of the Foucault pendulum, a device demonstrating the effect of the Earth's rotation...
demonstrates the greater speed of light in air than in water, and establishes that the speed of lightSpeed of lightThe speed of light in vacuum, usually denoted by c, is a physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact since the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time...
in different media is inverse to the refractive indicesRefractive indexIn optics the refractive index or index of refraction of a substance or medium is a measure of the speed of light in that medium. It is expressed as a ratio of the speed of light in vacuum relative to that in the considered medium....
of the media, using the Fizeau-Foucault apparatusFizeau-Foucault apparatusThe Fizeau–Foucault apparatus was designed by the French physicists Hippolyte Fizeau and Léon Foucault for measuring the speed of light. The apparatus involves light reflecting off a rotating mirror, toward a stationary mirror some 20 miles away...
. - May - John TyndallJohn TyndallJohn Tyndall FRS was a prominent Irish 19th century physicist. His initial scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he studied thermal radiation, and produced a number of discoveries about processes in the atmosphere...
and Hermann Knoblauch publish a report on "The magneto-optic properties of crystals, and the relation of magnetism and diamagnetism to molecular arrangement".
Births
- January 15 - Sofia KovalevskayaSofia KovalevskayaSofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya , was the first major Russian female mathematician, responsible for important original contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics, and the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe.She was also one of the first females to...
(d. 18911891 in scienceThe year 1891 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* The New Zealand government sets aside Resolution Island in Fiordland as a nature reserve....
), mathematician. - January 24 - Hermann EbbinghausHermann EbbinghausHermann Ebbinghaus was a German psychologist who pioneered the experimental study of memory, and is known for his discovery of the forgetting curve and the spacing effect. He was also the first person to describe the learning curve...
(d. 19091909 in scienceThe year 1909 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Chemistry:* Summer - Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch first demonstrate the Haber process, the catalytic formation of ammonia from hydrogen and atmospheric nitrogen under conditions of high temperature and...
), psychologist. - February 15 - Sophie BryantSophie BryantSophie Bryant was an Anglo-Irish mathematician, educator, feminist and activist.She was the daughter of Revd Dr William Willock DD, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Dublin...
(d. 19221922 in scienceThe year 1922 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Archaeology:* November 4 - British archaeologist Howard Carter and his men find the entrance to King Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings of Egypt.-Biology:...
), mathematician and educationalist. - March 31 - Charles WalcottCharles Doolittle WalcottCharles Doolittle Walcott was an American invertebrate paleontologist. He became known for his discovery in 1909 of well-preserved fossils in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada.-Early life:...
(d. 19271927 in scienceThe year 1927 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Mathematics:* Publication of the 2nd edition of Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, one of the most important and seminal works in mathematical logic and philosophy.-Physics:*...
), paleontologist. - May 18 - Oliver HeavisideOliver HeavisideOliver Heaviside was a self-taught English electrical engineer, mathematician, and physicist who adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, invented mathematical techniques to the solution of differential equations , reformulated Maxwell's field equations in terms of electric and...
(d. 19251925 in scienceThe year 1925 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* July 21 - Scopes Trial: In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John T...
), physicist. - May 23 - George Claridge DruceGeorge Claridge DruceGeorge Claridge Druce, MA, LLD, JP, FRS, FLS was an English botanist and a Mayor of Oxford.G. Claridge Druce was born at Potterspury on Watling Street in Northamptonshire. He was the illegitimate son of Jane Druce, born 1815 in Buckinghamshire.He went to school in the village of Yardley Gobion....
(d. 19321932 in scienceThe year 1932 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space sciences:* Estonian astronomer Ernst Öpik postulates that long-period comets originate in an orbiting cloud at the outermost edge of the Solar System.-Biology:* Geneticist J. B. S...
), botanist. - June 6 - Karl Ferdinand BraunKarl Ferdinand BraunKarl Ferdinand Braun was a German inventor, physicist and Nobel laureate in physics. Braun contributed significantly to the development of the radio and television technology: he shared with Guglielmo Marconi the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics.-Biography:Braun was born in Fulda, Germany, and...
(d. 19181918 in scienceThe year 1918 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* Kiyotsugu Hirayama identifies several groups of main belt asteroids, now known as Hirayama families....
), physicist. - August 25 - Charles Richet (d. 19351935 in scienceThe year 1935 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Geology:* Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg develop the Richter magnitude scale for quantifying earthquakes.-History of science:...
), Nobel Prize winner.
Deaths
- March 27 - Wilhelm Beer (b. 17971797 in scienceThe year 1797 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Births:* January 14 - Wilhelm Beer, Prussian astronomer * April 29 - George Don, Scottish botanist * November 14 - Charles Lyell, Scottish geologist...
), astronomerAstronomerAn astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
. - April 9 - William ProutWilliam ProutWilliam Prout FRS was an English chemist, physician, and natural theologian. He is remembered today mainly for what is called Prout's hypothesis.-Biography:...
(b. 17851785 in scienceThe year 1785 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Aviation:* January 7 - Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air.-Biology:* Antoine...
), chemistChemistA chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
. - May 10 - Joseph Louis Gay-LussacJoseph Louis Gay-Lussac- External links :* from the American Chemical Society* from the Encyclopædia Britannica, 10th Edition * , Paris...
(b. 17781778 in scienceThe year 1778 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Geoscience:* James Rennell publishes a chart and memoir of the Agulhas Current, one of the first contributions to scientific oceanography.-Medicine:...
), chemist and physicistPhysicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
.