1666 in science

The year 1666 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Events

• December 22 – French Academy of Sciences first meets.

Astronomy

• Publication of Stanisław Lubieniecki's Theatrum Cometicum begins in Amsterdam, the first encyclopedia and atlas of comets.

Botany

• Establishment of Herrenhäuser Gärten, Hanover.

Mathematics

• Isaac Newton develops differential calculus.
• Samuel Morland produces several designs of pocket calculating machine and also publishes A New Method of Cryptography.^[1]

Physics

• Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight into the component colours of the optical spectrum, assisting understanding of the nature of light.
• Robert Hooke and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli both expound gravitation as an attractive force (Hooke's lecture "On gravity" at the Royal Society of London on March 21; Borelli's Theoricae Mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deductae, published in Florence later in the year).^[2]

Publications

• Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne, publishes Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, including an attack on Robert Hooke's Micrographia.^[3]

Births

• December – Stephen Gray, English scientist (died 1736)

Deaths

• Giovanni Battista Baliani, Genoese physicist (born 1582)
• Song Yingxing, Chinese encyclopedist (born 1587)