The year 1802 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

March 28 - H. W. Olbers discovers the second asteroid Pallas.
Sir William Herschel first uses the term binary star to refer to a star which revolves around another star.

William Hyde Wollaston observes lines in the spectrum of the sun

Biology

Pierre André Latreille begins publication of his Histoire naturelle générale et particulière des crustacés et insectes.
George Montagu publishes his Ornithogical Dictionary; or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds.
In the history of evolutionary thought
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck publishes Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps Vivants, proposing that all life is organized in a vertical chain of progressive complexity.[1]
Gottfried Reinhold Treviranus begins publication of Biologie; oder die Philosophie der lebenden Natur, proposing a theory of the transmutation of species.

Chemistry

Tantalum , Anders Gustav Ekeberg

July - William Hyde Wollaston notes the discovery of the noble metal palladium.
Charles's law (the "law of volumes"), describing how gases tend to expand when heated, is first published in France by Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac.[2]
Thomas Wedgwood discovers a method of creating photographs using silver nitrate.[3]

Ecology

Civil engineer and geographer François Antoine Rauch publishes Harmonie hydro-végétale et météorologique: ou recherches sur les moyens de recréer avec nos forêts la force des températures et la régularité des saisons par des plantations raisonnées in Paris, arguing against deforestation.

Geology

James Smithson proves that zinc carbonates are true carbonate minerals and not zinc oxides, as was previously thought.[4][5]
John Playfair publishes Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth in Edinburgh, popularising James Hutton's theory of geology.
James Sowerby begins to issue his British Mineralogy, or, coloured figures intended to elucidate the mineralogy of Great Britain in London, the first comprehensive illustrated reference work on the subject.

Medicine

June - The first pediatric hospital, the Hôpital des Enfants Malades, opens in Paris, on the site of a previous orphanage.[6]
London Fever Hospital founded.
Charles Bell publishes The Anatomy of the Brain, Explained in a Series of Engravings.[7]

Physics

Johann Wilhelm Ritter builds the first electrochemical cell.[8][9]

On the Modification of Clouds by Luke Howard who introduces the names cirrus , cumulus , nimbus , stratus

Surveying

April 10 - Great Trigonometric Survey of India begins with the measurement of a baseline near Madras.

Technology

November 5 - Marc Isambard Brunel begins installation of his blockmaking machinery at Portsmouth Block Mills in England.[10]
George Bodley of Exeter in England patents the first enclosed kitchen stove.[11][12]
Joseph Bramah of London patents the hydraulic press.[13]

Publications

January 2 - Rev. Abraham Rees begins publication in London of The New Cyclopædia, or Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences.[14]

Awards

Copley Medal: William Hyde Wollaston

Births

18 January 1802, Death of Antoine Darquier de Pellepoix, in Toulouse, France

February 6 - Charles Wheatstone, inventor (died 1875)
5 August 1802 Birth of Niels Henrik Abel, mathematician (died 1829)
October 10 - Hugh Miller, geologist (died 1856)
December 15 - János Bolyai, mathematician (died 1860)

1802 Birth of Germain Henri Hess

Deaths

April 18 - Erasmus Darwin, author of Zoonomia (born 1731)
November 16 - André Michaux, French botanist (born 1746)

References

^ Osborn, Henry Fairfield (1905). From the Greeks to Darwin: an outline of the development of the evolution idea (2nd ed.). New York: Macmillan. p. 160.
^ Gay-Lussac, J. L. (X). "Recherches sur la dilatation des gaz et des vapeurs". Annales de chimie XLIII: 137. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
^ Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 354. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
^ "Who was James Smithson? – A Man of Science". Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on 12 June 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-18.
^ Smithson, James (1803). "A Chemical Analysis of Some Calamines". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Pt. I. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
^ Ballbriga, Angel (1991). "One century of pediatrics in Europe". In Nichols, Burford L. et al. (eds). History of Paediatrics 1850–1950. Nestlé Nutrition Workshop Series. 22. New York: Raven Press. pp. 6–8. ISBN 0-88167-695-0.
^ Jacyna, L. S. (2004). "Bell, Sir Charles (1774–1842)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/1999. Retrieved 2011-04-06. subscription or UK public library membership required
^ Berg, Hermann (2008). "Johann Wilhelm Ritter: the Founder of Scientific Electrochemistry". Review of Polarography 54 (2): 99–103. Retrieved 09 July 2010.
^ Wetzels, Walter D. (1978). "J. W. Ritter: the Beginnings of Electrochemistry in Germany". In Dubpernell, G.; Westbrook, J. H. (ed.). Selected Topics in the History of Electrochemistry. Princeton: Electrochemical Society. pp. 68–73.
^ Bagust, Harold (2006). The Greater Genius? - a biography of Marc Isambard Brunel. Hersham: Ian Allan. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-7110-3175-3.
^ Cornforth, David; Speight, Anne (2009-05-03). "Bodley & Co.". Exeter Memories. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
^ "The History of Ranges". Tarvin: Antique Fireplaces & Ranges. Retrieved 2011-03-12.
^ Carlisle, Rodney (2004). Scientific American Inventions and Discoveries. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. p. 266. ISBN 0-471-24410-4.
^ Underwood, John (Spring/Summer 2010). "The subversive encyclopedia". Science Museum Library & Archives Newsletter (Science Museum at Wroughton). Retrieved 2011-11-12.