1512 in science

The year 1512 in science and technology included a number of events, some of which are listed here.

Astronomy

• Possible date – Nicolaus Copernicus begins to write Commentariolus, an abstract of what will eventually become De revolutionibus orbium coelestium; he sends it to other scientists interested in the matter by 1514.^[1][2][3]

Exploration

• António de Abreu discovers Timor island and reaches the Banda Islands and Seram.
• Francisco Serrão reaches the Moluccas.
• Juan Ponce de León discovers the Turks and Caicos Islands.
• Pedro Mascarenhas discovers Diego Garcia and reaches Mauritius in the Mascarene Islands.

Pharmaceutics

• Hieronymus Brunschwygk's Big Book (of Distillation) describes medicinal herbs and the construction of stills for processing them.

Technology

• Martin Waldseemüller (of the Rhineland) produces and describes the first theodolite (which he calls the polimetrum).^[4][5][6]

Births

• March 5 – Gerardus Mercator, Flemish cartographer (died 1594)
• approx. date – Robert Recorde, Welsh-born mathematician and physician (died 1558)^[7]

Deaths

• February 22 – Amerigo Vespucci, Italian explorer (born 1454)
• August 2 – Alessandro Achillini, Italian anatomist (born 1463)
• September 29 – Johannes Engel, German astronomer and physician (born 1453)^[8]