1666 in science
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The year 1666 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Events
- December 22 â French Academy of Sciences first meets.
Astronomy
- Publication of StanisÅaw Lubieniecki's Theatrum Cometicum begins in Amsterdam, the first encyclopedia and atlas of comets.
Botany
- Establishment of Herrenhäuser Gärten, Hanover.
Mathematics
- Isaac Newton develops differential calculus.
- Samuel Morland produces several designs of pocket calculating machine and also publishes A New Method of Cryptography.[1]
Physics
- Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight into the component colours of the optical spectrum, assisting understanding of the nature of light.
- Robert Hooke and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli both expound gravitation as an attractive force (Hooke's lecture "On gravity" at the Royal Society of London on March 21; Borelli's Theoricae Mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deductae, published in Florence later in the year).[2]
Publications
- Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne, publishes Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, including an attack on Robert Hooke's Micrographia.[3]
Births
- December â Stephen Gray, English scientist (died 1736)
Deaths
- Giovanni Battista Baliani, Genoese physicist (born 1582)
- Song Yingxing, Chinese encyclopedist (born 1587)