1755 in science
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The year 1755 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Immanuel Kant develops the nebular hypothesis in his Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven (Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels).[1][2]
Chemistry
- June â Joseph Black's discovery of carbon dioxide ("fixed air") and magnesium is communicated in a paper to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh.[3]
Earth sciences
- November 1 â An earthquake in Lisbon kills 30,000 inhabitants.
- Publication of De Litteraria expeditione per pontificiam ditionem ad dimetiendos duos meridiani gradus a PP, a description of the measurement of a meridian arc carried out in the Papal States by RuÄer BoÅ¡koviÄ with Christopher Maire in 1750â52.
Life sciences
- August Johann Rösel von Rosenhof publishes the first record of an amoeba; he names it "der kleine Proteus" ("the little Proteus").[4]
Mathematics
- Leonhard Euler's Institutiones calculi differentialis is published.[5]
Technology
- December 2 â The second Eddystone Lighthouse (1709â1755), with a wooden cone, catches fire and burns to the ground; it will be rebuilt in stone.
- While serving as Postmaster General of the northern American colonies, Benjamin Franklin invents a simple odometer, attached to his horse carriage, to help analyze the best routes for delivering the mail.
- approx. date â Thomas Mudge invents the lever escapement for timepieces.
Awards
Births
- January 28 â Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, Prussian physician, anatomist, paleontologist and inventor (died 1830).
- April 11 â James Parkinson, English surgeon (died 1824).
- June 15 â Antoine François, French chemist (died 1809)
- October 11 â Fausto Elhuyar, Spanish chemist (died 1833).
- October 28 â Jacques Labillardière, French naturalist (died 1834).
- Maria Elizabetha Jacson, English botanist (died 1829).
Deaths
- May 20 â Johann Georg Gmelin, botanist, natural historian and geographer (born 1709)