1862 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1862 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.
Astronomy
- January 31 - Alvan Graham ClarkAlvan Graham ClarkAlvan Graham Clark , born in Fall River, Massachusetts, was an American astronomer and telescope-maker. He was the son of Alvan Clark, founder of Alvan Clark & Sons....
makes the first observation of SiriusSiriusSirius is the brightest star in the night sky. With a visual apparent magnitude of −1.46, it is almost twice as bright as Canopus, the next brightest star. The name "Sirius" is derived from the Ancient Greek: Seirios . The star has the Bayer designation Alpha Canis Majoris...
B, a white dwarfWhite dwarfA white dwarf, also called a degenerate dwarf, is a small star composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. They are very dense; a white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth. Its faint luminosity comes from the emission of stored...
star, through an eighteen inch telescope at Northwestern UniversityNorthwestern UniversityNorthwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
.
Biology
- Henry Walter BatesHenry Walter BatesHenry Walter Bates FRS FLS FGS was an English naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the Amazon with Alfred Russel Wallace in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852, but lost his collection in a shipwreck...
publishes "Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley. Lepidoptera: Heliconidae". Transactions of the Linnean SocietyLinnean Society of LondonThe Linnean Society of London is the world's premier society for the study and dissemination of taxonomy and natural history. It publishes a zoological journal, as well as botanical and biological journals...
(London) 23 pp. 495-566, describing Batesian mimicryBatesian mimicryBatesian mimicry is a form of mimicry typified by a situation where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a common predator...
. - May 15 - Charles DarwinCharles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
publishes On the various contrivances by which British and foreign Orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossingFertilisation of OrchidsFertilisation of Orchids is a book by Charles Darwin published on 15 May 1862 under the full explanatory title On the various contrivances by which British and foreign orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing...
. - John Gwyn JeffreysJohn Gwyn JeffreysJohn Gwyn Jeffreys was a British conchologist and malacologist.He was born in Swansea into a propertied Welsh family and educated at Swansea Grammar School. He went to London to qualify as a barrister, which he did. His greater passion however was for conchology...
begins publication of British Conchology, or an account of the Mollusca which now inhabit the British Isles and the surrounding seas.
Chemistry
- Alexander BorodinAlexander BorodinAlexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
describes the first nucleophilic displacement of chlorine by fluorine in benzoyl chlorideBenzoyl chlorideBenzoyl chloride, also known as benzenecarbonyl chloride, is an organochlorine compound with the formula C6H5COCl. It is a colourless, fuming liquid with an irritating odour...
. - Mineralogist Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de ChancourtoisAlexandre-Emile Béguyer de ChancourtoisAlexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois was a French geologist and mineralogist who was the first to arrange the chemical elements in order of atomic weights, doing so in 1862. De Chancourtois only published his paper, but did not publish his actual graph with the proposed arrangement...
makes the first proposal to arrange the chemical elementChemical elementA chemical element is a pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom distinguished by its atomic number, which is the number of protons in its nucleus. Familiar examples of elements include carbon, oxygen, aluminum, iron, copper, gold, mercury, and lead.As of November 2011, 118 elements...
s in order of atomic weightAtomic weightAtomic weight is a dimensionless physical quantity, the ratio of the average mass of atoms of an element to 1/12 of the mass of an atom of carbon-12...
s, although this is largely ignored by chemists.
Awards
- Copley MedalCopley MedalThe Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
: Thomas GrahamThomas Graham (chemist)Thomas Graham FRS was a nineteenth-century Scottish chemist who is best-remembered today for his pioneering work in dialysis and the diffusion of gases.- Life and work :... - Wollaston Medal for geologyWollaston MedalThe Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...
: Robert Godwin-Austen
Births
- January 23 - David HilbertDavid HilbertDavid Hilbert was a German mathematician. He is recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental ideas in many areas, including invariant theory and the axiomatization of...
(d. 19431943 in scienceThe year 1943 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* July 21 - Living specimens of Metasequoia glyptostroboides, the Dawn Redwood, previously known only as a Mesozoic fossil, are located in China....
), German mathematicianMathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
. - February 14 - Agnes PockelsAgnes PockelsAgnes Luise Wilhelmine Pockels , was a German pioneer in chemistry.-Biography:In 1862, she was born in Venice, Italy. Her father served in the Austrian army. When he fell sick with malaria, the family moved to Brunswick, Lower Saxony in 1871. Already as a child, Agnes was interested in science and...
(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:...
), German 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...
(in Venice). - July 2 - William Henry BraggWilliam Henry BraggSir William Henry Bragg OM, KBE, PRS was a British physicist, chemist, mathematician and active sportsman who uniquely shared a Nobel Prize with his son William Lawrence Bragg - the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics...
(d. 19421942 in scienceThe year 1942 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* February 27 - James Stanley Hey, a British Army research officer, first detects radio waves emitted by the sun, helping to pioneer radio astronomy....
), EnglishEnglish peopleThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
winner of the 1915 Nobel Prize in PhysicsNobel Prize in PhysicsThe Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded once a year by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895 and awarded since 1901; the others are the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Prize, and...
. - October 19 - Auguste Lumière (d. 19541954 in scienceThe year 1954 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* November 30 - In Sylacauga, Alabama, an 8.5 pound sulfide meteorite crashes through a roof and hits Mrs...
), FrenchFrench peopleThe French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
inventor, film pioneer.
Deaths
- January 10 - Samuel ColtSamuel ColtSamuel Colt was an American inventor and industrialist. He was the founder of Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company , and is widely credited with popularizing the revolver. Colt's innovative contributions to the weapons industry have been described by arms historian James E...
(b. 18141814 in scienceThe year 1814 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Chemistry:* J. Jacob Berzelius publishes Försök att genom användandet af den electrokemiska theorien och de kemiska proportionerna grundlägga ett rent vettenskapligt system för mineralogien The year 1814 in...
), AmericanUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
inventor. - February 3 - Jean-Baptiste BiotJean-Baptiste BiotJean-Baptiste Biot was a French physicist, astronomer, and mathematician who established the reality of meteorites, made an early balloon flight, and studied the polarization of light.- Biography :...
(b. 17741774 in scienceThe year 1774 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Chemistry:* August 1 - Joseph Priestley, working at Bowood House, Wiltshire, England, isolates oxygen in the form of a gas, which he calls "dephlogisticated air"....
), French 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...
. - February 7 - Prosper MénièreProsper MénièreProsper Ménière , born in Angers, France. Ménière was lycée and university educated where he excelled at humanities and classics. He completed his gold medal in medical studies at Hôtel-Dieu de Paris in 1826, and his M.D...
(b. 17991799 in scienceThe year 1799 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.-Archaeology:* July 15 - In the Egyptian port city of Rosetta , French Captain Pierre Bouchard finds the Rosetta Stone, which will become the key to deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.* July 25 -...
), French physicianPhysicianA physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
who first described the symptoms of Ménière's diseaseMénière's diseaseMénière's disease is a disorder of the inner ear that can affect hearing and balance to a varying degree. It is characterized by episodes of vertigo and tinnitus and progressive hearing loss, usually in one ear. It is named after the French physician Prosper Ménière, who, in an article published...
. - March 1 - Peter Barlow (b. 17761776 in scienceThe year 1776 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Botany:* William Withering publishes The botanical arrangement of all the vegetables naturally growing in Great Britain, the first flora in English based on Linnaean taxonomy....
), English mathematicianMathematicianA mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
. - October 8 - James WalkerJames Walker (engineer)James Walker, FRS, was an influential Scottish civil engineer of the first half of the 19th century.Walker was born in Falkirk and was apprenticed to his uncle Ralph Walker in approximately 1800, with whom he gained experience working on the design and construction of the West India and East India...
(b. 17811781 in scienceThe year 1781 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Astronomy:* William Herschel discovers Uranus.* Charles Messier publishes final catalogue of Messier objects.* March 20 - Pierre Méchain discovers dwarf galaxy NGC 5195.-Biology:...
), ScottishScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
-born civil engineerCivil engineerA civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...
. - October 21 - Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet (b. 17831783 in scienceThe year 1783 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Aviation:* June 5 - The Montgolfier brothers send up at Annonay, near Lyon, a 900 m linen hot air balloon as a public demonstration...
), English physiologist. - December 18 - Lucas BarrettLucas BarrettLucas Barrett was an English naturalist and geologist.Barrett was born in London and educated at University College School and at Ebersdorf. In 1855, he accompanied R. McAndrew on a dredging excursion from the Shetland Islands to Norway and beyond the Arctic Circle; and subsequently made other...
(b. 18371837 in scienceThe year 1837 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* August 9 - Edward C. Herrick, in New Haven, Connecticut, identifies the Perseids as an annual phenomenon....
), English naturalistNatural historyNatural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
(drowned). - December 21 - Karl KreilKarl KreilKarl Kreil was an Austrian meteorologist and astronomer, born in Ried.Before university, he was educated at the Benedictine Kremsmünster Abbey, under the astronomer Boniface Schwarzenbrunner. He was educated at the University of Vienna, where he studied law before devoting himself to astronomy...
(b. 17981798 in scienceThe year 1798 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Chemistry:* The element beryllium is discovered by Louis Vauquelin as the oxide in beryl and in emeralds. Friedrich Wöhler and A. A...
), AustriaAustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n 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...
.