1816 in science explained

The year 1816 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Botany

• Botanic Gardens, Sydney, established in Australia.

Chemistry

• Veuve Clicquot invents the riddling table process to clarify champagne.

Mathematics

• John Farey notes the Farey sequence.^[1]

Medicine

• René Laennec invents the stethoscope.^[2]
• Caleb Parry publishes An Experimental Inquiry into the Nature, Cause and Varieties of the Arterial Pulse, describing the mechanisms for the pulse.^[3]

Mineralogy

• Johann Fischer von Waldheim publishes Essai sur la Turquoise et sur la Calaite in Moscow, the first scientific treatise on the mineral turquoise.

Physics

• Sir David Brewster (1781–1868) discovers stress birefringence.

Technology

• January 9 – Sir Humphry Davy's Davy lamp is first tested underground as a coal mining safety lamp at Hebburn Colliery in north east England.^[4]
• The Spider Bridge at Falls of Schuylkill, a temporary iron-wire footbridge erected across the Schuylkill River, north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the first wire-cable suspension bridge in history.^[5]
• Johann Nepomuk Maelzel begins production of the metronome with a scale.^[6]
• Rev. Robert Stirling obtains a patent in the United Kingdom for the Stirling hot air engine.
• English inventor Francis Ronalds demonstrates the practicability of the electric telegraph but it is rejected as "wholly unnecessary" at this time.^{[7] [8]}
• approx. date – Simeon North in New England produces a practicable milling machine for working metal.^[9]

Awards

• Copley Medal: Not awarded^[10]

Births

• January 2 – Anastasie Fătu, Moldavian and Romanian physician and naturalist (died 1886)
• July 7 – Rudolf Wolf, Swiss astronomer (died 1893)
• July 20 – Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet, English ophthalmologist, histologist and anatomist (died 1892)
• December 13 – Werner Siemens, German electrical engineer (died 1892)

Deaths

• January 2 – Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, French chemist (born 1737)
• April 7 – Christian Konrad Sprengel, German botanist (born 1750)
• September 18 – Bernard McMahon, Irish American horticulturalist (born c. 1775)
• September 28 – Edward Howard, English chemist (born 1774)
• December 15 – Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope, English engineer (born 1753)

Notes and References

1. Philosophical Magazine 47: 385–86. 1816.
2. Book: Laennec, R. T. H.. De l’Auscultation Médiate ou Traité du Diagnostic des Maladies des Poumons et du Coeur. Paris. Brosson & Chaudé. 1819. preface.
3. Web site: Parry, Caleb Hillier. Whonamedit?. 2011-02-27.
4. Book: Thompson, Roy. Thunder underground: Northumberland mining disasters, 1815-1865. 2013-01-08. 2004. Landmark. Ashbourne. 9781843061694. 121.
5. Peterson. Charles E.. The Spider Bridge: a curious work at the Falls of Schuylkill, 1816. Canal History and Technology Proceedings. 5. 22 March 1986. 243–59.
6. J. de Vos. Willems. The Metronome. The Harmonicon. 8. 1830. 2011-05-18.
7. Book: Ronalds, Francis. Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph and of some other Electrical Apparatus. Hunter. 1823. London.
8. Web site: August 5, 1816: Sir Francis Ronalds' telegraph design rejected. 2020-08-03. This Month in Physics History. American Physical Society.
9. Book: Muir, Diana. Diana Muir

   . Diana Muir. Reflections in Bullough's Pond

   Economy and Ecosystem in New England

   . Lebanon, New Hampshire. University Press of New England. 978-0-87451-909-9.

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