1760 in science explained

The year 1760 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Chemistry

• Louis Claude Cadet de Gassicourt investigates inks based on cobalt salts and isolates cacodyl from cobalt mineral containing arsenic, pioneering work in organometallic chemistry.

Geology

• John Michell suggests earthquakes are caused by one layer of rocks rubbing against another.^[1]

Medicine

• April 30 – Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli presents a paper at the French Academy of Sciences in Paris in which "a mathematical model was used for the first time to study the population dynamics of infectious disease."^[2]
• Samuel-Auguste Tissot publishes L'Onanisme in Lausanne, a treatise on the supposed ill-effects of masturbation.^{[3] [4]}

Physics

• Johann Heinrich Lambert publishes Photometria, a pioneering work in photometry, including a formulation of the Beer–Lambert law on light absorption and the introduction of the albedo as a reflection coefficient.

Events

• Mathematician Leonhard Euler begins writing his Letters to a German Princess (Lettres à une princesse d'Allemagne sur divers sujets de physique et de philosophie) to Friederike Charlotte of Brandenburg-Schwedt and her younger sister Louise.^[5]

Awards

• Copley Medal: Benjamin Wilson^[6]

Births

• April 13 – Thomas Beddoes, reforming English physician (died 1808)
• June 5 – Johan Gadolin, Finnish chemist and mineralogist (died 1852)
• October 23 – Hanaoka Seishū, Japanese surgeon (died 1835)
• Clelia Durazzo Grimaldi, Italian botanist (died 1830)

Deaths

• September 11 – Louis Godin, French astronomer (born 1704)

Notes and References

1. Conjectures concerning the Cause and Observations upon the Phaenomena of Earthquakes. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. 51. 10.1098/rstl.1759.0057 . 566–634. free.
2. Book: Roberts, Charles. Ordinary Differential Equations: Applications, Models, and Computing. CRC Press. 2011. 139-140.
3. Patrick. Singy. Friction of the Genitals and Secularization of Morality. 3704892. Journal of the History of Sexuality. 12. 2003. 345–64. 10.1353/sex.2004.0015.
4. Book: Laqueur, Thomas W.. Solitary Sex: A Cultural History of Masturbation. New York. Zone Books. 2003. 1-890951-32-3.
5. Book: Fellmann, Emil.

   . . Leonhard Euler. 2007. Springer. 978-3-7643-7539-3. 73–74.

6. Web site: Copley Medal British scientific award . Encyclopedia Britannica . 21 July 2020 . en.