The year 1789 in

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

and

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

involved some significant events.

Anatomy

Antonio Scarpa Antonio Scarpa (9 May 1752 – 31 October 1832) was an Italian anatomist and professor. Biography Scarpa was born to an impoverished family in the frazione of Lorenzaga, Motta di Livenza, Veneto. An uncle, who was a member of the priesthood, g ...

publishes ''Anatomicæ disquisitiones de auditu et olfactu'', a classic treatise on the hearing and olfactory organs.

Astronomy

* August 28 and September 17 –

William Herschel Frederick William Herschel ( ; ; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel. Born in the Electorate of Hanover ...

discovers

Saturn Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...

's moons

Enceladus Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn and the 18th-largest in the Solar System. It is about in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It is covered by clean, freshly deposited snow hundreds of meters thick, ...

and

Mimas Mimas, also designated Saturn I, is the seventh-largest natural satellite of Saturn. With a mean diameter of , Mimas is the smallest astronomical body known to be roughly rounded in shape due to its own gravity. Mimas's low density, 1.15 ...

, which he describes to the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

of London on November 12. *

Maximilian Hell Maximilian Hell () (born Rudolf Maximilian Höll; May 15, 1720 – April 14, 1792) was an astronomer and an ordained Jesuit priest from the Kingdom of Hungary. The lunar crater Hell is named after him. Biography Born as Rudolf Maximilian Höl ...

establishes the

constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

s '' Tubus Hershelli Major'' and ''Minor'' in honour of Herschel's discovery of Uranus (constellations obsolete by 1930).

Botany

Erasmus Darwin Erasmus Robert Darwin (12 December 173118 April 1802) was an English physician. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosophy, natural philosopher, physiology, physiologist, Society for Effecting the ...

publishes his poem '' The Loves of the Plants'', a popular rendering of

Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné,#Blunt, Blunt (2004), p. 171. was a Swedish biologist and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the modern system of naming o ...

' works. *

Antoine Laurent de Jussieu Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (; 12 April 1748 – 17 September 1836) was a French botanist, notable as the first to publish a natural classification of flowering plants; much of his system remains in use today. His classification was based on an e ...

publishes
Genera Plantarum: secundum ordines naturales disposita, juxta methodum in Horto regio parisiensi exaratam, anno M.DCC.LXXIV
', providing a basis for the system of natural classification of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (). The term angiosperm is derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek words (; 'container, vessel') and (; 'seed'), meaning that the seeds are enclosed with ...

s largely still in use.

Chemistry

Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and that i ...

's '' Traité élémentaire de chimie'' presents a unified view of new theories of chemistry, containing a clear statement of the law of

conservation of mass In physics and chemistry, the law of conservation of mass or principle of mass conservation states that for any system closed to all transfers of matter the mass of the system must remain constant over time. The law implies that mass can neith ...

, defining the nature of elements and denying the existence of

phlogiston The phlogiston theory, a superseded scientific theory, postulated the existence of a fire-like element dubbed phlogiston () contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name comes from the Ancient Greek (''burnin ...

. He also helps establish the

scientific journal In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication designed to further the progress of science by disseminating new research findings to the scientific community. These journals serve as a platform for researchers, schola ...

Annales de chimie __NOTOC__ ''Annales de chimie et de physique'' (, ) is a scientific journal founded in Paris, France, in 1789 under the title ''Annales de chimie''. One of the early editors was the French chemist Antoine Lavoisier. Lavoisier, an aristocrat, was ...

'' which will still be published into the 21st century. * German chemist

Martin Heinrich Klaproth Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1 December 1743 – 1 January 1817) was a German chemist. He trained and worked for much of his life as an apothecary, moving in later life to the university. His shop became the second-largest apothecary in Berlin, and ...

discovers the element

Uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...

while studying the mineral

pitchblende Uraninite, also known as pitchblende, is a radioactive, uranium-rich mineral and ore with a chemical composition that is largely UO2 but because of oxidation typically contains variable proportions of U3O8. Radioactive decay of the urani ...

Exploration

* July 10 – Alexander Mackenzie reaches the

Mackenzie River The Mackenzie River (French: ; Slavey language, Slavey: ' èh tʃʰò literally ''big river''; Inuvialuktun: ' uːkpɑk literally ''great river'') is a river in the Canadian Canadian boreal forest, boreal forest and tundra. It forms, ...

Delta.

Mathematics

* The Slovene mathematician

Jurij Vega Baron Jurij Bartolomej Vega (also spelled Veha; ; ; born Vehovec, March 23, 1754 – September 26, 1802) was a Slovene mathematician, physicist, and artillery commissioned officer. Early life Born into a farmer's family in the small village o ...

presents his approximation of π to 140 decimal places of which the first 126 are correct, a feat not exceeded for more than half a century.

Medicine

* February 4 –

James Parkinson James Parkinson (11 April 1755 – 21 December 1824) was an English surgeon, apothecary, geologist, palaeontologist and political activist. He is best known for his 1817 work ''An Essay on the Shaking Palsy'', in which he was the first to desc ...

gives the first description of human injury from

lightning strike A lightning strike or lightning bolt is a lightning event in which an electric discharge takes place between the atmosphere and the ground. Most originate in a cumulonimbus cloud and terminate on the ground, called cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning ...

s, in a paper read to the

Medical Society of London Medicine is the science and practice of caring for patients, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

. * Andrew Duncan delivers the first lectures on

forensic medicine Forensic medicine is a broad term used to describe a group of medical specialties which deal with the examination and diagnosis of individuals who have been injured by or who have died because of external or unnatural causes such as poisoning, assa ...

in Britain, at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

Technology

* Rev. Dr.

Edmund Cartwright Edmund Cartwright (24 April 174330 October 1823) was an English inventor. He graduated from Oxford University and went on to invent the power loom. Married to local Elizabeth McMac at 19, he was the brother of Major John Cartwright, a politic ...

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 discl ...

s his first practical

power loom A power loom is a mechanized loom. Shuttle looms The main components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses, shuttle, reed, and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations ...

in England and designs a wool combing machine. *

William Wouldhave William Wouldhave (1751–1821) is a rival of Lionel Lukin for recognition as inventor of the lifeboat. His tombstone (erected thirteen years before Lukin’s) describes him as: ::::::‘''Inventor of that invaluable blessing to mankind the Life ...

demonstrates a self-righting rescue lifeboat on the

River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden, Northumberland, Warden near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The ...

in England.

Zoology

* Swiss naturalist

François Huber François Huber (2 July 175022 December 1831), also known as Francis in English publications and Franz in German publications, was a Switzerland, Swiss Entomology, entomologist who specialized in honey bees. His pioneering work was recognized a ...

devises the "leaf hive" for the cultivation of honey bees.

Awards

Copley Medal The Copley Medal is the most prestigious award of the Royal Society of the United Kingdom, conferred "for sustained, outstanding achievements in any field of science". The award alternates between the physical sciences or mathematics and the bio ...

: William Morgan

Births

* January 3 –

Carl Gustav Carus Carl Gustav Carus (3 January 1789 – 28 July 1869) was a German physiologist and painter, born in Leipzig, who played various roles during the Romanticism, Romantic era. A friend of the writer Johann Wolfgang Goethe, he was a many-sided man: a ...

, German

physiologist Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out chemical and ...

and landscape painter (died

1869 Events January * January 3 – Abdur Rahman Khan is defeated at Tinah Khan, and exiled from Afghanistan. * January 5 – Scotland's second oldest professional football team, Kilmarnock F.C., is founded. * January 20 – Elizabe ...

) * February 26 –

Eaton Hodgkinson Eaton Hodgkinson (26 February 1789 – 18 June 1861) was an English engineer, a pioneer of the application of mathematics to problems of structural design. Early life Hodgkinson was born in the village of Anderton, near Northwich, Cheshire, ...

, English

structural engineer Structural engineers analyze, design, plan, and research List of structural elements, structural components and structural systems to achieve design goals and ensure the safety and comfort of users or occupants. Their work takes account mainly of ...

(died

1861 This year saw significant progress in the Unification of Italy, the outbreak of the American Civil War, and the emancipation reform abolishing serfdom in the Russian Empire. Events January * January 1 ** Benito Juárez captures Mexico Ci ...

) * March 16 –

Georg Ohm Georg Simon Ohm (; ; 16 March 1789 – 6 July 1854) was a German mathematician and physicist. As a school teacher, Ohm began his research with the new electrochemical cell, invented by Italian scientist Alessandro Volta. Using equipment of his o ...

, German

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

(died

1854 Events January–March * January 4 – The McDonald Islands are discovered by Captain William McDonald aboard the ''Samarang''. * January 6 – The fictional detective Sherlock Holmes is perhaps born. * January 9 – The Te ...

) * August 21 –

Augustin-Louis Cauchy Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy ( , , ; ; 21 August 1789 – 23 May 1857) was a French mathematician, engineer, and physicist. He was one of the first to rigorously state and prove the key theorems of calculus (thereby creating real a ...

, French

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 ...

(died

1857 Events January–March * January 1 – The biggest Estonian newspaper, '' Postimees'', is established by Johann Voldemar Jannsen. * January 7 – The partly French-owned London General Omnibus Company begins operating. * Ja ...

) * September 4 –

Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré (September 4, 1789 – January 16, 1854) was a French botanist. Biography Gaudichaud was born in Angoulême, to J-J. Gaudichaud and Rose (Mallat) Gaudichaud. He studied pharmacology informally at Cognac and Angoulême, ...

, French botanist (died

) * September 28 – Richard Bright, English

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

(died

1858 Events January–March * January 9 ** Revolt of Rajab Ali: British forces finally defeat Rajab Ali Khan of Chittagong. ** Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide. * January 14 – Orsini affair: Pi ...

) * October 8 –

William Swainson William Swainson Fellow of the Linnean Society, FLS, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (8 October 1789 – 6 December 1855), was an English ornithologist, Malacology, malacologist, Conchology, conchologist, entomologist and artist. Life Swains ...

, English

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

(died

1855 Events January–March * January 1 – Ottawa, Ontario, is incorporated as a city.' * January 5 – Ramón Castilla begins his third term as President of Peru. * January 23 ** The first bridge over the Mississippi River o ...

) * October 25 –

Heinrich Schwabe Samuel Heinrich Schwabe (25 October 1789 – 11 April 1875) was a German amateur astronomer remembered for his work on sunspots. He observed sunspots and made drawings of them from 1825 to 1867 and suggested in 1838 that there may be a ten-year cy ...

, German

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

(died

1875 Events January * January 1 – The Midland Railway of England abolishes the Second Class passenger category, leaving First Class and Third Class. Other British railway companies follow Midland's lead during the rest of the year (Third C ...

)

Deaths

* April 7 – Petrus Camper, Dutch

comparative anatomist Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny (the evolution of species). The science began in the classical era, continuing in t ...

(born

1722 Events January–March * January 27 – Daniel Defoe's novel '' Moll Flanders'' is published anonymously in London. * February 10 – The Battle of Cape Lopez begins off of the coast of West Africa (and present-day Gabon), ...

) * May 25 –

Anders Dahl Anders (or Andreas) Dahl (17 March 1751 – 25 May 1789) was a Swedes, Swedish botanist and student of Carl Linnaeus. The dahlia flower is named after him. Early life and education Andreas (Anders) Dahl was the son of Christoffer Dahl, a preac ...

, Swedish

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

for whom the

dahlia ''Dahlia'' ( , ) is a genus of bushy, tuberous, herbaceous perennial plants native to Mexico and Central America. Dahlias are members of the Asteraceae (synonym name: Compositae) family of dicotyledonous plants, its relatives include the sun ...

is named (born 1751) * ''undated'' –

Angélique du Coudray Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray ( – 17 April 1794) was an influential, pioneering midwife during her lifetime, who gained fame when men were taking over the field. She rose from middle-class origins to become noticed and commissione ...

, French pioneer of modern

midwifery Midwifery is the health science and health profession that deals with pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period (including care of the newborn), in addition to the sexual and reproductive health of women throughout their lives. In many cou ...

(born

1712 In the Swedish calendar it began as a leap year starting on Monday and remained so until Thursday, February 29. By adding a second leap day, Friday, February 30, Sweden reverted to the Julian calendar and the rest of the year (from Saturday, M ...

)

References

{{reflist 18th century in science 1780s in science