1854 in science

The year 1854 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

List of years in science (table)
… 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859 1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 …
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Philosophy Science +...

Astronomy

• July 22 – Discovery of the asteroid 30 Urania by John Russell Hind.
• George Airy calculates the mean density of the Earth by measuring the gravity in a coal mine in South Shields.

Chemistry

• Benjamin Silliman of Yale University is the first person to fractionate petroleum into its individual components by distillation.

Exploration

• January 4 – First definite sighting of McDonald Islands in the Antarctic.

Mathematics

• March 26 – Playfair cipher first demonstrated, by Charles Wheatstone.
• George Boole's work on algebraic logic, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities, published in London.[1]
• Arthur Cayley states the original version of Cayley's theorem and produces the first Cayley table.[2][3]
• Bernhard Riemann, a German mathematician, submits his habilitation thesis Ueber die Darstellbarkeit einer Function durch eine trigonometrische Reihe ("About the representability of a function by a trigonometric series"), in which he describes the Riemann integral. It is published by Richard Dedekind in 1867.[4]

Medicine

• April–May – Dr John Snow traces the source of one outbreak of cholera in London (which kills 500) to a single water pump, validating his theory that cholera is water-borne, and forming the starting point for epidemiology.
• November – Florence Nightingale and her team of trained volunteer nurses arrive at Selimiye Barracks in Scutari in the Ottoman Empire to care for British Army troops invalided from the Crimean War.[5]
• Spanish-born vocal pedagogist Manuel García observes his own functioning glottis using a form of laryngoscope incorporating mirrors.[6][7]
• Claude Bernard introduces the term Milieu intérieur in physiology.

Microbiology

• Filippo Pacini, an Italian anatomist, discovers Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera.[8]
• Louis Pasteur begins studying fermentation at the request of brewers.

Technology

Fink truss

• May 9 – Albert Fink patents the Fink truss in the United States.[9]
• May 17 – Deck of Wheeling Suspension Bridge in the United States destroyed through torsional movement and vertical undulations in a severe windstorm.
• July – First voyage by a seagoing steamship fitted with a compound steam engine, the screw steamer Brandon, built on the River Clyde in Scotland by John Elder.[10]
• September 19 – Thaddeus Hyatt patents a practical pavement light.[11]
• November 27 – André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri patents a method of producing carte de visite photographs in France.
• December 20 – In the case of Talbot v. Laroche, pioneer of photography Henry Fox Talbot fails in asserting that the collodion process infringes his calotype patent.[12]
• James Ambrose Cutting takes out three United States patents for improvements to the wet plate collodion process (Ambrotype photography).
• Elisha Otis completes work on the safety elevator.

Events

• 10 June – The Crystal Palace reopens in Sydenham, South London[13] with life-size dinosaur models in the grounds.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Johannes Peter Müller[14]
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Richard John Griffith

Births

• January 27 – George Alexander Gibson (died 1913), Scottish physician and geologist.
• January 29 – Fred Baker (died 1938), American physician and naturalist.
• February 9 – Aletta Jacobs (died 1929), Dutch physician and women's suffrage activist
• March 4 – Napier Shaw (died 1945), English meteorologist.
• March 15 – Emil Adolf von Behring (died 1917), German physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901.
• March 31 – Dugald Clerk (died 1932), Scottish mechanical engineer.
• April 28 – Phoebe Marks, later Hertha Ayrton (died 1923), English electrical engineer.
• April 29 – Henri Poincaré (died 1912), French mathematician.
• May 11 – Ottmar Mergenthaler (died 1899), German-born inventor.
• June 13 – Charles Algernon Parsons (died 1931), British inventor of the steam turbine.
• July 12 – George Eastman (suicide 1932), American photographic inventor.
• July 23 – Birt Acres (died 1918), American-born cinematographic inventor.
• July 28 – Victor Babeș (died 1926), Austrian-born Romanian physician and bacteriologist.
• October 3 – Hermann Struve (died 1920), Russian-born astronomer.

Deaths

• April 15 – Arthur Aikin (born 1773), English chemist and mineralogist
• July 6 – Georg Ohm (born 1787), German physicist
• September 28 – George Field (born c.1777), English colour chemist
• November 18 – Edward Forbes (born 1815), Manx naturalist

References

1. Williams, Hywel (2005). Cassell's Chronology of World History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-304-35730-8.
2. Cayley, Arthur (1854), "On the theory of groups as depending on the symbolic equation θⁿ=1", Philosophical Magazine, 7 (4): 40–47
3. Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London: Quercus. p. 152. ISBN 978-1-84724-008-8.
4. "Riemann's Habilitationsschrift". Archived from the original on 2008-05-20. Retrieved 2008-05-19.
5. Baly, Monica E.; Matthew, H. C. G. (2004). "Nightingale, Florence (1820–1910)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2011-06-20. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
6. Garcia, Manuel (1855). "Observations on the Human Voice". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. 7: 399–410. doi:10.1098/rspl.1854.0094. JSTOR 111815.
7. Radomski, Teresa (2005). "Manuel García (1805–1906): a bicentenary reflection" (PDF). Australian Voice. 11: 25–41. Retrieved 2012-02-07.
8. Frerichs, Ralph R. (2001-08-05). "Who first discovered Vibrio cholera?". UCLA School of Public Health. Archived from the original on 19 January 2008. Retrieved 30 December 2007. Pacini's 1854 publication was titled "Osservazioni microscopiche e deduzioni patologiche sul cholera asiático" ("Microscopical observations and pathological deductions on cholera").
9. Griggs, Frank (May 2006). "The Inspirations of a German Immigrant: Albert Fink" (PDF). Structure. National Council of Structural Engineers Associations: 52–4. Retrieved 2011-08-16.
10. "John Elder, 1824-1869". Memoirs and portraits of one hundred Glasgow men. Glasgow: James MacLehose & Sons. 1886. p. 118. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
11. US 11,695, Hyatt, Thaddeus, "Vault cover", issued 1854-09-19.
12. Wood, R. D. (1975). The Calotype Patent Lawsuit of Talbot v. Laroche 1854. Bromley, Kent: privately published. ISBN 0-9504377-0-0. Retrieved 2010-10-18.
13. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.
14. "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2020.