1606 in science
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The year 1606 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Cryptography
- The cryptographic text Steganographia, written by Johannes Trithemius c.1499/1500, is published in Frankfurt.
Exploration
- February 26
- Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon makes the first confirmed sighting of Australia by a European.
- Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the Pitcairn Islands.
- March â The Dutch ship Duyfken, under Captain Willem Janszoon, explores the western coast of Cape York Peninsula.[1]
- May â Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the islands of Vanuatu; believing them to be Australia, he names them La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo.[2]
- October â LuÃs Vaz de Torres is the first European to sail through the Torres Strait.
Mathematics
- Giovanni Antonio Magini devises trigonometric tables of high accuracy.
Physics
- Approx. date â Galileo invents a thermometer based on the expansion of gas.[3]
Technology
- The first recorded instance of a bayonet published in the Chinese military treatise Binglu.
Births
- January 4 (bapt.) â Edmund Castell, English orientalist (died 1685)
Deaths
- September 28 â Nicolaus Taurellus, German philosopher and scientist (born 1547)
- November 13 â Girolamo Mercuriale, Italian physician and historian (born 1530)
- Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, Dutch nautical chart maker (born 1533/4)