The year 1657 in
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
and
technology
Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scie ...
involved some significant events.
Geography
*
Peter Heylin
Peter Heylyn or Heylin (29 November 1599 – 8 May 1662) was an English ecclesiastic and author of many polemical, historical, political and theological tracts. He incorporated his political concepts into his geographical books ''Microcosmu ...
publishes his ''Cosmographie'', one of the earliest attempts to describe the entire world in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national id ...
and the first known description of
Australia.
Mathematics
*
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists ...
writes the first book to be published on
probability theory
Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set o ...
, ''De ratiociniis in ludo aleae'' ("On Reasoning in Games of Chance").
Medicine
*
Walter Rumsey
Walter Rumsey (1584–1660) was a Welsh judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1640. He suffered for his support of the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. He was also a man of arts and sciences, and developed plantsmanship, ...
invents the provang, a
baleen
Baleen is a filter-feeding system inside the mouths of baleen whales. To use baleen, the whale first opens its mouth underwater to take in water. The whale then pushes the water out, and animals such as krill are filtered by the baleen and ...
instrument which he describes in his ''Organon Salutis: an instrument to cleanse the stomach.''
Technology
*
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists ...
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling disclo ...
s his
1656
Events
January–March
* January 5 – The First War of Villmergen, a civil war in the Confederation of Switzerland pitting its Protestant and Roman Catholic cantons against each other, breaks out but is resolved by March 7. The ...
design for a
pendulum clock
A pendulum clock is a clock that uses a pendulum, a swinging weight, as its timekeeping element. The advantage of a pendulum for timekeeping is that it is a harmonic oscillator: It swings back and forth in a precise time interval dependent on i ...
and the first example is made for him by
Salomon Coster
Salomon Coster (c. 1620–1659) was a Dutch clockmaker of the Hague, who in 1657 was the first to make a pendulum clock, which had been invented by Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695). Coster died a sudden death in 1659.
Coster's earliest pendulum ...
at
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's ad ...
.
* ''approx. date'' – The
anchor escapement
In horology, the anchor escapement is a type of escapement used in pendulum clocks. The escapement is a mechanism in a mechanical clock that maintains the swing of the pendulum by giving it a small push each swing, and allows the clock's wheels ...
for
clock
A clock or a timepiece is a device used to measure and indicate time. The clock is one of the oldest human inventions, meeting the need to measure intervals of time shorter than the natural units such as the day, the lunar month and t ...
s is probably invented by
Robert Hooke
Robert Hooke FRS (; 18 July 16353 March 1703) was an English polymath active as a scientist, natural philosopher and architect, who is credited to be one of two scientists to discover microorganisms in 1665 using a compound microscope that h ...
.
Institutions
*
Accademia del Cimento
The Accademia del Cimento (Academy of Experiment), an early scientific society, was founded in Florence in 1657 by students of Galileo, Giovanni Alfonso Borelli and Vincenzo Viviani and ceased to exist about a decade later. The foundation of Aca ...
established in
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...
.
Births
* February 11 –
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle,
French scientific populariser (died
1757
Events
January–March
* January 2 – Seven Years' War: The British Army, under the command of Robert Clive, captures Calcutta, India.
* January 5 – Robert-François Damiens makes an unsuccessful assassination att ...
)
* ''approx. date'' –
Pierre-Charles Le Sueur
Pierre-Charles Le Sueur (c. 1657, Artois, France – 17 July 1704, Havana, Cuba) was a French fur trader and explorer in North America, recognized as the first known European to explore the Minnesota River valley.
Le Sueur came to Canada with ...
, French fur trader and explorer (died
1704
In the Swedish calendar it was a leap year starting on Friday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar.
Events
January–June
* January 7 – Partial solar eclipse, Solar Saros 146, is visible in A ...
)
Deaths
* June 3 –
William Harvey
William Harvey (1 April 1578 – 3 June 1657) was an English physician who made influential contributions in anatomy and physiology. He was the first known physician to describe completely, and in detail, the systemic circulation and prope ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national id ...
physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
who discovered the circulation of blood (born
1578
__NOTOC__
Year 1578 ( MDLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
January–June
* January 31 – Battle of Gembloux: Spanish forces under Don John of ...
)
* June 16 –
Fortunio Liceti
Fortunio Liceti (Latin: ''Fortunius Licetus''; October 3, 1577 – May 17, 1657), was an Italian physician and philosopher.
Life and career
He was born prematurely at Rapallo, near Genoa to Giuseppe Liceti and Maria Fini, while the family was ...
,
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
Aristotelian scientific
polymath
A polymath ( el, πολυμαθής, , "having learned much"; la, homo universalis, "universal human") is an individual whose knowledge spans a substantial number of subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific pro ...
(born
1577
__NOTOC__
Year 1577 (Roman numerals, MDLXXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
January–June
* January 9 – The second Union of Brussels is formed, firs ...
)
* September 23 –
Joachim Jungius
Joachim Jungius (born Joachim Junge; 22 October 1587 – 23 September 1657) was a German mathematician, logician and philosopher of science.
Life
Jungius was a native of Lübeck. He studied metaphysics at the Universities of Rostock and Giess ...
,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...
,
logician
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both Mathematical logic, formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of Validity (logic), deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating h ...
and philosopher of science (born
1587
Events
January–June
* February 1 – Queen Elizabeth I of England signs the death warrant of her cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, after Mary has been implicated in a plot to murder Elizabeth. Seven days later, on the orders of ...
)
* October 22 –
Cassiano dal Pozzo
Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588 – 22 October 1657) was an Italian scholar and patron of arts. The secretary of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, he was an antiquary in the classicizing circle of Rome, and a long-term friend and patron of Nicolas Poussin, w ...
, Italian scholar and patron (born
1588
__NOTOC__
Events
January–June
* February – The Sinhalese abandon the siege of Colombo, capital of Portuguese Ceylon.
* February 9 – The sudden death of Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz, in the midst of pre ...
)
* November –
John French, English physician and
chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe ...
(born c.
1616
Events
January–June
* January
** Six-year-old António Vieira arrives from Portugal, with his parents, in Bahia (present-day Salvador) in Colonial Brazil, where he will become a diplomat, noted author, leading figure of the Church, an ...
)
References
{{reflist
17th century in science
1650s in science