1887 in science
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The year 1887 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.
Astronomy
- April â Carte du Ciel project initiated by Paris Observatory director Amédée Mouchez.
- Theodor von Oppolzer's Canon der Finsternisse, a compilation of the 8,000 solar and 5,200 lunar eclipses from 1200 BC until 2161 AD, is published posthumously.[1]
Biology
- Jean Pierre Mégnin publishes Faune des Tombeaux ("Fauna of the Tombs"), the founding work of modern forensic entomology.[2]
- Sergei Winogradsky discovers the first known form of lithotrophy during his research with Beggiatoa.[3]
- The Petri dish is created by German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri.
Chemistry
- Amphetamine is first synthesized in Germany by Romanian chemist LazÄr Edeleanu, who names it phenylisopropylamine.
- Otto Schott produces 'Normalthermometerglas' (family of Borosilicate glass) for the first time.
Cartography
- Guyou hemisphere-in-a-square projection developed by Ãmile Guyou.[4]
Climate
- January 28 â In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, in the United States, the largest snowflakes on record are reported. They are 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick.[5]
- September 28 â Start of the Yellow River floods in China: 900,000 dead.
Conservation
- June 23 â The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada, creating that nation's first national park, Banff National Park.[6]
Earth sciences
- February 23 â The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000 along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
- In Hawaii, the Mauna Loa volcano eruptions subside, having begun in 1843. During the 1887 eruption, about 2½ million tons (2.3 million metric tons) of lava per hour pours out, covering an area of 29 km2.
Linguistics
- March 3 â Anne Sullivan begins to teach language to the deaf and blind Helen Keller.
- July 26 â L. L. Zamenhof publishes Lingvo internacia ("International language") under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto".[7]
Mathematics
- Joseph Louis François Bertrand rediscovers Bertrand's ballot theorem.[8]
- Henri Poincaré provides a solution to the three-body problem.
- The SchröderâBernstein theorem in set theory is first published by Georg Cantor (without proof) and (on July 11) first proved by Richard Dedekind (without publication).[9][10]
Medicine
- January 11 â Louis Pasteur's anti-rabies treatment is defended in the French Academy of Medicine by Dr. Joseph Grancher.
- August â The U.S. National Institutes of Health is founded at the Marine Hospital, Staten Island, NY, as the Laboratory of Hygiene.
- October 1 â Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese founded by Patrick Manson.[11]
- Paediatrician Samuel Gee gives the first modern-day description of coeliac disease in children in a lecture at Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children in London.>[12][13]
- Surgeon Franz König publishes "Ãber freie Körper in den Gelenken" in the journal Deutsche Zeitschrift für Chirurgie, first describing (and naming) the disease Osteochondritis dissecans.
- The Hospitals Association establishes the first (non-statutory and voluntary) register of nurses in the United Kingdom.
Physics
- November â The MichelsonâMorley experiment is performed, indicating that the speed of light is independent of motion.
- Heinrich Hertz discovers the photoelectric effect on the production and reception of electromagnetic waves in radio, an important step towards the understanding of the quantum nature of light.
Psychology
- November â G. Stanley Hall founds The American Journal of Psychology.
- Richard Hodgson and S. J. Davey, in the course of investigations into popular belief in parapsychology, publish one of the first descriptions of eyewitness unreliability.[14]
Technology
- March 8 â Everett Horton of Connecticut patents a fishing rod of telescoping steel tubes.
- March 13 â Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs.
- June 8 â Herman Hollerith receives a U.S. patent for his punched card calculator.
- July â James Blyth operates the first working wind turbine at Marykirk in Scotland.[15][16]
- July 19 â Dorr Eugene Felt receives the first U.S. patent for his comptometer.[17]
- August â Anna Connelly patents a fire escape.[18]
- October 18 â Jacob Fitzgerald and William H. Silver are granted a U.S. patent for a "potato masher and fruit crusher", a form of potato ricer.[19]
- November 8 â Emile Berliner is granted a U.S. patent for his Gramophone.[20]
- Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick invents the contact lens, made of a type of brown glass.[21]
- English engineer James Atkinson invents his "Cycle Engine".
- Mexican general Manuel Mondragón patents the Mondragón rifle, the world's first automatic rifle.[22]
- Alfred Yarrow completes the first practical high-pressure water-tube Yarrow boiler, for a torpedo boat.[23]
Organizations
- March 7 â North Carolina State University is established as North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.
- October 3 â Florida A&M University opens its doors in Tallahassee, Florida.
Publications
- Publication in Barcelona of Enrique Gaspar's El anacronópete, the first work of fiction to feature a time machine.[24]
Awards
- June â William Armstrong created 1st Baron Armstrong of Cragside, the first engineer to be raised to the Peerage of the United Kingdom
- Copley Medal: Joseph Dalton Hooker[25]
- Wollaston Medal for Geology: John Whitaker Hulke
Births
- January 7 â Kurt Schneider (died 1967), German psychiatrist.
- January 15 â Henry Fairfield Osborn, Jr. (died 1969), American conservationist.
- January 28 â Edmund Jaeger (died 1983), American naturalist.
- April 20 â Margaret Newton (died 1971), Canadian plant pathologist.
- June 22 â Julian Huxley (died 1975), English biologist and populariser of science.
- July 30 â Felix Andries Vening Meinesz (died 1966), Dutch geophysicist.
- August 18 â Erwin Schrödinger (died 1961), Austrian physicist.
- September 26 â Barnes Wallis (died 1979), English aeronautical engineer.
- October 11 â MarÃa Teresa Ferrari (died 1956), Argentine physician.
- November 10 â Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu (died 1973), Romanian engineer.
- November 19 â James B. Sumner (died 1955), American winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
- November 23 â Henry Moseley (killed 1915), English physicist.
- November 25 (November 13 Old Style) â Nikolai Vavilov (died 1943), Russian plant pathologist.
- December 13 â George Pólya (died 1985), Hungarian mathematician.
- December 22 â Srinivasa Ramanujan (died 1920), Indian mathematician.
- December 27 â Edward Andrade (died 1971), English physicist.
Deaths
- January 22 â Joseph Whitworth (born 1803), English mechanical engineer.
- February 26 â Anandi Gopal Joshi (born 1865), Indian physician.
- July 17 â Henry William Ravenel (born 1814), American botanist.
- July 18 â Dorothea Dix (born 1802), American mental health reformer.
- August 2 â Joseph-Louis Lambot (born 1814), French inventor of ferrocement.
- August 15 â Julius von Haast (born 1824), German geologist.
- August 19
- Spencer Fullerton Baird (born 1823), American ornithologist and ichthyologist.
- Alvan Clark (born 1804), American telescope manufacturer.
- October 7 (O.S. September 25) â Lev Tsenkovsky (born 1822), Russian biologist.
- October 17 â Gustav Kirchhoff (born 1824), German physicist.
- November 18 â Gustav Fechner (born 1801), German psychologist.