The year 1792 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

Franz Xaver, Baron Von Zach publishes The Tables of the Sun, an essential work for navigation.
The first Royal Astronomer of Ireland is appointed: the post is combined with the position of Director of the Dunsink Observatory in Dublin.

Biology

Scottish surgeon Robert Kerr publishes The Animal Kingdom, the first two volumes of an English translation of Linnaeus' Systema Naturae.

Exploration and survey

May - George Vancouver explores Puget Sound and becomes the first European to see Mount Rainier.
Ramsden theodolite constructed by Jesse Ramsden for the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain.[1]

History of science

Kurt Sprengel publishes Versuch einer pragmatischen Geschichte der Arzneikunde in Halle, the first chronologically complete work on the history of medicine.[2]

Medicine

Benjamin Rush campaigns for more humane treatment of psychiatric patients in Pennsylvania.[3]
François Chopart performs plastic surgery on a lip using a flap from the neck.

Physics

Abate Giovanni Battista Guglielmini publishes De diuturno terræ motu experimentis physico-mathematicis confirmato opusculum describing experiments carried out in Bologna to demonstrate rotation of the earth.

Technology

Claude Chappe successfully demonstrates the first semaphore line, between Paris and Lille, constituting an optical telegraph.
William Murdoch invents gas lighting.
George Anschutz constructs the first blast furnace in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
James Rumsey is granted a patent for a water turbine, in England.[4]

Awards

Copley Medal: Benjamin Thompson

Births

January 12 - Johan August Arfwedson, Swedish chemist (d. 1841)
February 1 - Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach, German plastic surgeon (d. 1847)
February 17 - Karl Ernst von Baer, Estonian naturalist (d. 1876)
7 March 1792 Birth of John Frederick William Herschel, English mathematician and astronomer (d. 1871)
21 May 1792 Birth of Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, French mathematician, discoverer of the Coriolis effect (d. 1843)

Deaths

October 28 - John Smeaton, English civil engineer (b. 1724)
October 28 - Paul Möhring, German physician and botanist (b. 1710)

1792 Death of Maximilian Hell

References

^ "Ramsden's three foot geodetic theodolite, 1792". Science Museum (London). Retrieved 2011-11-20.
^ "History of Medicine: Bibliography". 1902 Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2011-10-10.
^ Deutsch, Albert (2007). The Mentally Ill in America: a History of Their Care and Treatment From Colonial Times.
^ British patent no. 1903