1822 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1822 in science
and technology
involved some significant events, listed below.
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
and technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
involved some significant events, listed below.
Geology
- Friedrich MohsFriedrich MohsCarl Friedrich Christian Mohs was a German geologist/mineralogist.- Career :Mohs, born in Gernrode, Germany, studied chemistry, mathematics and physics at the University of Halle and also studied at the Mining Academy in Freiberg, Saxony...
introduces his system of classifying minerals and his scale of mineral hardnessMohs scale of mineral hardnessThe Mohs scale of mineral hardness characterizes the scratch resistance of various minerals through the ability of a harder material to scratch a softer material. It was created in 1812 by the German geologist and mineralogist Friedrich Mohs and is one of several definitions of hardness in...
. - Georges CuvierGeorges CuvierGeorges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...
establishes new standards and methods in stratigraphyStratigraphyStratigraphy, a branch of geology, studies rock layers and layering . It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks....
and paleontologyPaleontologyPaleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
. - Gideon MantellGideon MantellGideon Algernon Mantell MRCS FRS was an English obstetrician, geologist and palaeontologist...
discovers the first fossilFossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
of the iguanodonIguanodonIguanodon is a genus of ornithopod dinosaur that lived roughly halfway between the first of the swift bipedal hypsilophodontids and the ornithopods' culmination in the duck-billed dinosaurs...
. - John PhillipsJohn Phillips (geologist)John Phillips FRS was an English geologist.- Life and work :Philips was born at Marden in Wiltshire...
and William Conybeare identify the CarboniferousCarboniferousThe Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
Period. - Jean Baptiste Julien d'Omalius d'HalloyJean Baptiste Julien d'Omalius d'HalloyJean Baptiste Julien d'Omalius d'Halloy was a Belgian geologist. He also wrote on races.- Early life and education :He was born at Liège, Belgium on February 16, 1783. He was the only son of an ancient and noble family, and his education was carefully directed...
identifies the CretaceousCretaceousThe Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
Period. He also proposes the JurassicJurassicThe Jurassic is a geologic period and system that extends from about Mya to Mya, that is, from the end of the Triassic to the beginning of the Cretaceous. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic era, also known as the age of reptiles. The start of the period is marked by...
System.
Mathematics
- July 3 - Charles BabbageCharles BabbageCharles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
publishes a proposal for a "difference engineDifference engineA difference engine is an automatic, mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Both logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful sets of numbers.-History:...
", a forerunner of the modern computer for calculating logarithmLogarithmThe logarithm of a number is the exponent by which another fixed value, the base, has to be raised to produce that number. For example, the logarithm of 1000 to base 10 is 3, because 1000 is 10 to the power 3: More generally, if x = by, then y is the logarithm of x to base b, and is written...
s and trigonometricTrigonometryTrigonometry is a branch of mathematics that studies triangles and the relationships between their sides and the angles between these sides. Trigonometry defines the trigonometric functions, which describe those relationships and have applicability to cyclical phenomena, such as waves...
functions. Construction of an operational version will proceed under British Government sponsorship 1823–32 but it will never be completed. - Karl Feuerbach describes the nine-point circleNine-point circleIn geometry, the nine-point circle is a circle that can be constructed for any given triangle. It is so named because it passes through nine significant points defined from the triangle...
of a triangleTriangleA triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or vertices and three sides or edges which are line segments. A triangle with vertices A, B, and C is denoted ....
.
Medicine
- United States ArmyUnited States ArmyThe United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
surgeonSurgeonIn medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
William BeaumontWilliam BeaumontWilliam Beaumont was a surgeon in the U.S. Army who became known as the "Father of Gastric Physiology" following his research on human digestion.-Early life:...
pioneers human gastric endoscopyEndoscopyEndoscopy means looking inside and typically refers to looking inside the body for medical reasons using an endoscope , an instrument used to examine the interior of a hollow organ or cavity of the body. Unlike most other medical imaging devices, endoscopes are inserted directly into the organ...
on Alexis St. MartinAlexis St. MartinAlexis St. Martin was a Canadian voyageur who is known for his part in experiments on digestion in humans, conducted by the American physician William Beaumont between 1822 and 1833.- Work with Beaumont :...
.
Technology
- May 23 - HMS Comet launched at Deptford Dockyard in the United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the first steamboatSteamboatA steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
commissioned by the Royal NavyRoyal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. - June 10 - The Aaron ManbyAaron ManbyAaron Manby was a landmark vessel in the science of shipbuilding as the first iron steamship to go to sea. She was built by Aaron Manby at the Horseley Ironworks. She made the voyage to Paris in June 1822 under Captain Charles Napier, with Aaron's son Charles on board as engineer...
crosses the English ChannelEnglish ChannelThe English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
, making her the first seagoing iron steamboat.
Awards
- June 12 - Edward BanksEdward Banks (builder)Sir Edward Banks was an English builder.Banks began as a day labourer and rose to the chief control of the firm of Jolliffe & Banks, contractors for public works, and was the builder of Waterloo, Southwark, and London bridges. He owed his fortune principally to these contracts, which he took with...
knighted, the first such honour for work in civil engineeringCivil engineeringCivil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
. - Copley MedalCopley MedalThe Copley Medal is an award given by the Royal Society of London for "outstanding achievements in research in any branch of science, and alternates between the physical sciences and the biological sciences"...
: William BucklandWilliam BucklandThe Very Rev. Dr William Buckland DD FRS was an English geologist, palaeontologist and Dean of Westminster, who wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus...
Births
- January 2 - Rudolf ClausiusRudolf ClausiusRudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius , was a German physicist and mathematician and is considered one of the central founders of the science of thermodynamics. By his restatement of Sadi Carnot's principle known as the Carnot cycle, he put the theory of heat on a truer and sounder basis...
, physicist (d. 18881888 in scienceThe year 1888 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* January 3 - The 91 cm refracting telescope at Lick Observatory is first used...
) - January 6 - Heinrich SchliemannHeinrich SchliemannHeinrich Schliemann was a German businessman and amateur archaeologist, and an advocate of the historical reality of places mentioned in the works of Homer. Schliemann was an archaeological excavator of Troy, along with the Mycenaean sites Mycenae and Tiryns...
, archaeologist (d. 18901890 in scienceThe year 1890 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* Francis Galton announces a statistical demonstration of the uniqueness and classifiability of individual human fingerprints....
) - February 16 - Sir Francis GaltonFrancis GaltonSir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
, explorer, biologist (d. 19111911 in scienceThe year 1911 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy and space science:* June 28 - The Nakhla meteorite lands in the area of Alexandria, Egypt, purportedly killing a dog.-Exploration:...
) - July 22 - Gregor MendelGregor MendelGregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance...
, geneticist (d. 18841884 in scienceThe year 1884 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Chemistry:* J. H. van 't Hoff proposes the Arrhenius equation for the temperature dependence of the reaction rate constant, and therefore, rate of a chemical reaction....
) - October 13 (O.S. October 1) - Lev TsenkovskyLev TsenkovskyLev Semyonovich Tsenkovsky was a Polish-Ukrainian botanist, protozoologist, bacteriologist, who was mostly active in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire...
, biologist (d. 18871887 in scienceThe year 1887 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.-Events:* March 7 - North Carolina State University is established as North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts....
) - December 27 - Louis PasteurLouis PasteurLouis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...
, biologist (d. 18951895 in scienceThe year 1895 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* David Bruce discovers the Trypanosoma parasite carried by the tsetse fly which causes the fatal cattle disease nagana.-Chemistry:...
)
Deaths
- August 13 - Jean-Robert ArgandJean-Robert ArgandJean-Robert Argand was a gifted amateur mathematician. In 1806, while managing a bookstore in Paris, he published the idea of geometrical interpretation of complex numbers known as the Argand diagram.-Life:...
, mathematician (b. 17681768 in scienceThe year 1768 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Biology:* Caspar Friedrich Wolff begins publication of "De Formatione Intestinarum" in the Mémoires of The Imperial Academy of Arts and Sciences The year 1768 in science and technology involved some significant...
) - August 25 - William HerschelWilliam HerschelSir Frederick William Herschel, KH, FRS, German: Friedrich Wilhelm Herschel was a German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer. Born in Hanover, Wilhelm first followed his father into the Military Band of Hanover, but emigrated to Britain at age 19...
, astronomer (b. 17381738 in scienceThe year 1738 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Botany:* Publication of Hortus Cliffortianus, a detailed description by Linnaeus of George Clifford's gardens at Hartekamp, Netherlands, including the raising of exotic plants such as bananas in a greenhouse.-Medicine:*...
) - November 6 - Claude Louis BertholletClaude Louis BertholletClaude Louis Berthollet was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804.-Biography:...
, chemist (b. 17481748 in scienceThe year 1748 in science and technology involved some significant events.-Chemistry:* Thomas Frye of the Bow porcelain factory in London produces bone china.-Mathematics:...
)