1864 in science explained

The year 1864 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed here.

Astronomy

• May 14 – The Orgueil meteorite, composed of carbonaceous chondrite, falls in southwestern France.
• August 29 – William Huggins is the first to take the spectrum of a planetary nebula when he analyzes NGC 6543.^[1]

Botany

• English botanist Richard Spruce completes a 15-year expedition to the Andes and Amazon Basin during which he has collected more than 30,000 plant specimens.^{[2] [3] [4]}

Chemistry

• August 20 – John Alexander Reina Newlands produces the first periodic table of the elements.^[5]
• November 27 – Barbituric acid is first synthesized, by German chemist Adolf von Baeyer.
• Lothar Meyer develops an early version of the periodic table, with 28 elements organized by valence.^{[6] [7]}
• Cato Maximilian Guldberg and Peter Waage, building on Claude Louis Berthollet's ideas, propose the law of mass action.^{[8] [9] [10]}

Conservation

• June 30 – The Yosemite Grant is created in the United States.^[11]

Mathematics

• Alfred Enneper publishes his parametrization of the Enneper surface in connection with minimal surface theory.^[12]

Physics

• December 8 – James Clerk Maxwell presents his paper A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field to the Royal Society in London, treating light as an electromagnetic wave and presenting Maxwell's equations.^[13]

Technology

• February 17 – In the American Civil War, the tiny Confederate hand-propelled submarine H. L. Hunley sinks the USS Housatonic using a spar torpedo in Charleston Harbor, becoming the first submarine to sink an enemy ship (although the submarine and her crew of eight are also lost).^[14]
• December 8 – The Clifton Suspension Bridge across the Bristol Avon in England, designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and completed as a memorial to him, opens to traffic.^[15]
• Oriel Chambers, Liverpool, England, the world's first metal-framed glass curtain walled building, designed by Peter Ellis (architect), is built.^[16]
• Nicolaus Otto and Eugen Langen produce a free piston gas atmospheric engine.
• Henry Roscoe and Robert Bunsen carry out what is reputed to be the first flashlight photography, using magnesium as a light source.^[17]
• Possible date – Siegfried Marcus builds the first motorized cart, in Vienna.

Zoology

• The species Homo neanderthalensis is formally described by William King.
• The Central Park Zoo opens in New York City as a menagerie.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Charles Darwin^[18]
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Roderick Murchison

Births

• January (prob. date) – George Washington Carver (died 1943), African American agricultural botanist.
• January 13 – Wilhelm Wien (died 1928), German physicist.
• March 12 – W. H. R. Rivers (died 1922), English psychiatrist.
• March 15 – Carl Edvard Johansson (died 1943), Swedish metrologist.
• April 21 – Max Weber (died 1920), German sociologist.
• June 14 – Alois Alzheimer (died 1915), German neuroscientist.
• June 25 – Walther Nernst (died 1941), German chemist.
• June 22 – Hermann Minkowski (died 1909), Lithuanian-German mathematician.
• September 8 (O.S. August 27) – Jakob Johann von Uexküll (died 1944), Baltic German pioneer of biosemiotics.^[19]
• December 1 – Carsten Borchgrevink (died 1934), Norwegian Antarctic explorer.

Deaths

• January 14 – Father Nicholas Callan (born 1799), Irish physicist.
• March 21 – Luke Howard (born 1772), English meteorologist and manufacturing chemist.
• May 3 – William Lobb (born 1809), English plant collector.
• May 5 – Elizabeth Andrew Warren (born 1786), Cornish botanist and marine algolologist.
• May 29 – Johann Georg Bodmer (born 1786), Swiss mechanical engineer and inventor.
• November 23 – Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve (born 1793), Baltic German-born astronomer.
• December 8 – George Boole (born 1815), English-born mathematician.
• December 12 – John Fowler (born 1826), English agricultural engineer.

Notes and References

1. Book: Kwok, Sun. Sun Kwok. The Origin and Evolution of planetary Nebulae. History and overview. 2000. Cambridge University Press. 1–7. 0-521-62313-8. 13 January 2012 .
2. Richard. Spruce. Hepaticae of the Amazon and the Andes of Peru and Ecuador. Transactions and Proceedings of the Botanical Society. Edinburgh. 1884. 15. 1-2.
3. Book: Spruce, Richard. Wallace, Alfred Russel. Alfred Russel Wallace. Notes of a botanist on the Amazon and the Andes... during the years 1849–1864. Macmillan. London. 1908.
4. Book: Pearson, Michael. Richard Spruce: naturalist and explorer. Hudson History. Settle, Yorkshire. 2004. 1-903783-28-3.
5. On Relations Among the Equivalents. Newlands. John A. R.. Chemical News. 10. 94–95. 1864-08-20. 2011-08-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20110721050432/http://web.lemoyne.edu/~giunta/EA/NEWLANDSann.HTML. 21 July 2011. live.
6. Web site: Julius Lothar Meyer and Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. Science History Institute. 21 March 2018. 21 March 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180321130939/https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/julius-lothar-meyer-and-dmitri-ivanovich-mendeleev. live.
7. Book: Bowden. Mary Ellen. Chemical achievers : the human face of the chemical sciences. registration. 1997. Chemical Heritage Foundation. Philadelphia, PA. 9780941901123. Julius Lothar Meyer and Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. 59-63.
8. Guldberg, C. M. . Waage, P. . 1864. Studies Concerning Affinity. Forhandlinger i Videnskabs-Selskabet i Christiana. 35.
9. Waage, P.. Experiments for Determining the Affinity Law. Forhandlinger i Videnskabs-Selskabet i Christiania. 1864. 92.
10. C. M.. Guldberg. Concerning the Laws of Chemical Affinity. Forhandlinger i Videnskabs-Selskabet i Christiania. 1864. 111.
11. Book: Schaffer, Jeffrey P.. Yosemite National Park. 4th. 48.
12. Enneper. A.. Analytisch-geometrische Untersuchungen. Zeitschrift für mathematische Physik. 9. 96–125. 1864.
13. 10.1098/rstl.1865.0008. Maxwell. J. Clerk. A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field. PDF. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. 155. 459–512. 1865. 2011-08-30. 2011-07-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20110728140123/http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/A_Dynamical_Theory_of_the_Electromagnetic_Field.pdf. live.
14. Book: Chaffin, Tom. The H. L. Hunley: the Secret Hope of the Confederacy. New York. Hill and Wang. 2008. 978-0-8090-9512-4. registration.
15. Book: Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 0-14-102715-0. 2006.
16. Web site: History. Oriel Chambers. 2009-07-27. 2011-02-08. https://web.archive.org/web/20110208175443/http://www.orielchambers.co.uk/#/411. live.
17. Web site: Henry Roscoe (1833-1915): flashlight photography. Museum of Science and Industry (Manchester). 2007. 2011-11-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20120302015509/http://emu.msim.org.uk/htmlmn/collections/online/browsethemes/relatedobjects_lower.php?irn=2386. 2012-03-02. dead.
18. Web site: Copley Medal British scientific award . Encyclopedia Britannica . 23 July 2020 . en . 24 July 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200724101403/https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal . live .
19. Book: Brentari, Carlo. Jakob von Uexküll: The Discovery of the Umwelt between Biosemiotics and Theoretical Biology. Springer. 2015.