1676 in science
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The year 1676 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Summer – The Royal Greenwich Observatory, designed by Christopher Wren, is completed near London.[1]
- December 7 – Danish astronomer Ole Rømer measures the speed of light by observing the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, obtaining a speed of 140,000 miles per second (approximately 25% too slow).
- Edmond Halley arrives on the island of Saint Helena, having left the University of Oxford, and sets up an astronomical observatory to catalogue stars from the Southern Hemisphere.
Biology
- Antony Van Leeuwenhoek discovers bacteria, observed with the microscope.[2]
- Francis Willughby's Ornithologiae is published by John Ray, the foundation of scientific ornithology.[3][4][5][6]
Medicine
- William Briggs publishes an anatomy of the eye (the first in England), Ophthalmographia, at Cambridge.[7]
- Thomas Sydenham publishes the textbook Observationes mediciae, the enlarged 3rd edition of his Methodus curandi febres.
Paleontology
- The first fossilised bone of what is now known to be a dinosaur is discovered in England by Robert Plot, the femur of a Megalosaurus from a limestone quarry at Cornwell near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.[8]
Physics
- Robert Hooke first reveals Hooke's law as a Latin anagram.[9]
Technology
- July 7 – The first clocks using a form of deadbeat escapement, constructed by Thomas Tompion to a design by Richard Towneley, are installed at the Royal Greenwich Observatory.
Births
- May 28 – Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician (died 1754)
- Caleb Threlkeld, Irish botanist (died 1728)
- Maria Clara Eimmart, German astronomer, engraver and designer (died 1707)
Deaths
- May 25 – Johann Rahn, Swiss mathematician (born 1622)
- September 4 – John Ogilby, English cartographer (born 1600)