1623 in science

The year 1623 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• July 16 – Great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, the closest together the two planets come until 2020.^[1]

Biology

• Apple orchard at Grönsö Manor in Sweden planted; it will still be productive into the 21st century.

Psychology

• Erotomania is first mentioned in a psychiatric treatise.^[2]

Technology

• Wilhelm Schickard draws a calculating clock on a letter to Kepler. This will be the first of five unsuccessful attempts at designing a direct entry calculating clock in the 17th century (including the designs of Tito Burattini, Samuel Morland and René Grillet).

Births

• June 19 – Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and physicist (died 1662)
• July 12 – Elizabeth Walker, English pharmacist (died 1690)
• August 26 – Johann Sigismund Elsholtz, German naturalist and physician (died 1688)
• September 1 – Caspar Schamberger, German surgeon and merchant (died 1706)
• September 23 – Georg Balthasar Metzger, German physician and scientist (died 1687)
• October 9 – Ferdinand Verbiest, Flemish Jesuit Sinologist and astronomer (died 1688)
• Margaret Lucas, later Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, English natural philosopher (died 1673)^[3]

Deaths

• May 26 – Francis Anthony, English apothecary and physician (born 1550)
• December 24 – Michiel Coignet, Flemish engineer, cosmographer, mathematician and scientific instrument-maker (born 1549)