1869 in science
Encyclopedia
The year 1869 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.
Events
- November 4 - The first issue of scientific journal NatureNature (journal)Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
is published in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, edited by Norman Lockyer.
Chemistry
- Dmitri MendeleevDmitri MendeleevDmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev , was a Russian chemist and inventor. He is credited as being the creator of the first version of the periodic table of elements...
makes a periodic tablePeriodic tableThe periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular display of the 118 known chemical elements organized by selected properties of their atomic structures. Elements are presented by increasing atomic number, the number of protons in an atom's atomic nucleus...
.
Life sciences
- Paul LangerhansPaul LangerhansPaul Langerhans was a German pathologist, physiologist and biologist.-Eponymous terms:* Islets of Langerhans - Pancreatic cells which produce insulin...
discovers the islets of LangerhansIslets of LangerhansThe islets of Langerhans are the regions of the pancreas that contain its endocrine cells. Discovered in 1869 by German pathological anatomist Paul Langerhans at the age of 22, the islets of Langerhans constitute approximately 1 to 2% of the mass of the pancreas...
in the pancreasPancreasThe pancreas is a gland organ in the digestive and endocrine system of vertebrates. It is both an endocrine gland producing several important hormones, including insulin, glucagon, and somatostatin, as well as a digestive organ, secreting pancreatic juice containing digestive enzymes that assist...
. - Friedrich MiescherFriedrich MiescherJohannes Friedrich Miescher was a Swiss physician and biologist. He was the first researcher to isolate and identify nucleic acid.-Biography:...
discovers deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in the pus of discarded surgical bandages. Found in the nuclei of cells, Miescher names it "nuclein". - Alfred Russell Wallace publishes The Malay ArchipelagoThe Malay ArchipelagoThe Malay Archipelago is a book by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace that chronicles his scientific exploration, during the eight year period 1854 to 1862, of the southern portion of the Malay Archipelago including Malaysia, Singapore, the islands of Indonesia, then known as the Dutch...
.
Mathematics
- W. Stanley JevonsWilliam Stanley JevonsWilliam Stanley Jevons was a British economist and logician.Irving Fisher described his book The Theory of Political Economy as beginning the mathematical method in economics. It made the case that economics as a science concerned with quantities is necessarily mathematical...
publishes The Substitution of Similars and has a "Logic Piano" constructed to work out problems in symbolic logic.
Awards
- 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"...
: Henri Victor RegnaultHenri Victor RegnaultHenri Victor Regnault was a French chemist and physicist best known for his careful measurements of the thermal properties of gases. He was an early thermodynamicist and was mentor to William Thomson in the late 1840s.... - Wollaston MedalWollaston MedalThe Wollaston Medal is a scientific award for geology, the highest award granted by the Geological Society of London.The medal is named after William Hyde Wollaston, and was first awarded in 1831...
for Geology: Henry Clifton SorbyHenry Clifton SorbyHenry Clifton Sorby , was an English microscopist and geologist.-Biography:Sorby was born at Woodbourne near Sheffield in Yorkshire and attended Sheffield Collegiate School. He early developed an interest in natural science, and one of his first papers related to the excavation of valleys in...
Births
- April 8 - Harvey CushingHarvey CushingHarvey Williams Cushing, M.D. , was an American neurosurgeon and a pioneer of brain surgery, and the first to describe Cushing's syndrome...
(d. 19391939 in scienceThe year 1939 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Astronomy:* Robert Oppenheimer jointly predicts two new types of celestial object:** With George Volkoff he calculates the structure of neutron stars....
), AmericanUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
neurosurgeon. - August 23 - Robert GuntherRobert GuntherRobert Theodore Gunther was a historian of science, zoologist, and founder of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford....
(d. 19401940 in scienceThe year 1940 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biochemistry:* August 24 - Howard Florey and a team including Ernst Chain, Arthur Duncan Gardner, Norman Heatley, M. Jennings, J. Orr-Ewing and G...
), EnglishEnglish peopleThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
historian of science. - October 3 - Robert W. PaulRobert W. PaulRobert W. Paul was a British electrician, scientific instrument maker and early pioneer of British film.-Early career:...
, (d. 19431943 in scienceThe year 1943 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Biology:* July 21 - Living specimens of Metasequoia glyptostroboides, the Dawn Redwood, previously known only as a Mesozoic fossil, are located in China....
), English pioneer of cinematography.
Deaths
- July 22 - John A. RoeblingJohn A. RoeblingJohn Augustus Roebling was a German-born American civil engineer. He is famous for his wire rope suspension bridge designs, in particular, the design of the Brooklyn Bridge.-Early life:...
(b. 18061806 in scienceThe year 1806 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.-Botany:* Publication begins in London of the Flora Graeca collected by John Sibthorp.-Mathematics:* Jean-Robert Argand introduces the Argand diagram....
), German AmericanGerman AmericanGerman Americans are citizens of the United States of German ancestry and comprise about 51 million people, or 17% of the U.S. population, the country's largest self-reported ancestral group...
bridge engineer. - September 11 - Thomas GrahamThomas Graham (chemist)Thomas Graham FRS was a nineteenth-century Scottish chemist who is best-remembered today for his pioneering work in dialysis and the diffusion of gases.- Life and work :...
(b. 18051805 in scienceSignificant events in 1805 in science and technology are listed.-Biology:* Jean Henri Jaume Saint-Hilaire publishes Exposition des Familles naturelles et de la Germination des Plantes, contentant la description de 2337 genres et d'environ 4000 espèces, 112 planches dont les figures ont ete...
), ScottishScottish peopleThe Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
chemistChemistA chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
.