1761 in science

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The year 1761 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• June 6 – The first transit of Venus since Edmond Halley suggested that its observation could determine the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Joseph-Nicolas Delisle set up a 62-station network for observing the transit. Those taking part included:
  • Nathaniel Bliss at the Royal Greenwich Observatory
  • César Cassini de Thury in Vienna
  • Jean-Baptiste Chappe d'Auteroche in Tobolsk, Siberia
  • Jeremiah Dixon and Charles Mason in Cape Town, South Africa (they had originally planned to go to Bengcoolen, Sumatra)
  • Maximilian Hell in Vardø, Norway
  • Joseph de Lalande in Paris
  • Tobias Mayer in Göttingen
  • Nevil Maskelyne in St Helena
  • Alexandre Pingré on Rodrigues Island
  • John Winthrop in St. John's, Newfoundland
  • Mikhail Lomonosov, who finds the first evidence that the planet has an atmosphere

Guillaume Le Gentil, who had hoped to observe from Pondicherry in India, was prevented from doing so due to the Seven Years' War and Ruđer Bošković arrives late in Constantinople.

Botany

• Louis Gérard publishes Flora Gallo-Provincialis, the first flora arranged according to natural classification.^[1]

Chemistry

• Johan Gottschalk Wallerius publishes his pioneering work in agricultural chemistry, Agriculturae fundamenta chemica (Åkerbrukets chemiska grunder).

Mathematics

• Johann Heinrich Lambert gives a proof that π is irrational.^[2]

Medicine

• Leopold Auenbrugger publishes Novum ex Percussione Thoracis Humani Interni Pectoris Morbos Detegendi in Vienna, for the first time advocating percussion of the chest as a diagnostic measure.
• Samuel-Auguste Tissot publishes Avis au peuple sur sa santé, a popular text of the century.^[3]

Veterinary medicine

• August 4 – Claude Bourgelat founds the first veterinary school, in Lyon; courses begin in 1762.

Technology

• Opening of Matthew Boulton's Soho Manufactory.

Awards

• Copley Medal: not awarded

Births

• January 17 – James Hall (died 1832), Scottish geologist and physicist.
• January 19 – Pierre Marie Auguste Broussonet (died 1807), French naturalist et physician.
• February 1 – Christiaan Hendrik Persoon (died 1836), South African-born Pomeranian/Dutch mycologist.
• February 4 – Blasius Merrem (died 1824), German zoologist.
• June 7 – John Rennie (died 1821), Scottish-born civil engineer.
• October 27 – Matthew Baillie (died 1823), Scottish-born pathologist
• November 30 – Smithson Tennant (died 1815), English chemist.
• December 21 – Jean-Louis Pons (died 1831), French astronomer.
• December 25 – William Gregor (died 1817), Cornish mineralogist.

Deaths

• March 22 – Pierre Fauchard, French physician and "father of modern dentistry" (born 1678)
• April 7 – Thomas Bayes, English mathematician (born c. 1702)
• May 14 – Thomas Simpson, British mathematician (born 1710)
• November 30 – John Dollond, English optician (born 1706)

References

1. Williams, Roger L. (1988). "Gerard and Jaume: Two Neglected Figures in the History of Jussiaean Classification". Taxon. 37: 2–34. JSTOR 1220932.
2. Lambert, Johann Heinrich (1762). "Mémoire sur quelques propriétés remarquables des quantités transcendentes circulaires et logarithmiques". Histoire de l'Académie. Berlin (published 1768). XVII: 265–322.
3. Singy, Patrick (2010). "The popularization of medicine in the eighteenth century: writing, reading, and rewriting Samuel Auguste Tissot's Avis au peuple sur sa santé". The Journal of Modern History. 82: 769–800. doi:10.1086/656073. JSTOR 656073.