1736 in science

The year 1736 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Botany

• Charles Marie de La Condamine, with François Fresneau Gataudière, makes the first scientific observations of rubber, in Ecuador.^[1]

Earth sciences

• June 19 – French Academy of Sciences expedition led by Pierre Louis Maupertuis, with Anders Celsius, begins work on measuring a meridian arc in the Torne Valley of Finland.^[2]

Mathematics

• June 8 – Leonhard Euler writes to James Stirling describing the Euler–Maclaurin formula, providing a connection between integrals and calculus.
• Euler produces the first published proof of Fermat's "little theorem".^[3]
• Sir Isaac Newton's Method of Fluxions (1671), describing his method of differential calculus, is first published (posthumously) and Thomas Bayes publishes a defense of its logical foundations against the criticism of George Berkeley (anonymously).^[4]

Medicine

• Early 1736 – The “Publick Workhouse and House of Correction” that is to become Bellevue Hospital in New York City is ready for occupancy.^[5][6]
• c. October – Winchester County Hospital, established by Prebendary Alured Clarke, the first voluntary general hospital in the English provinces.

Awards

• Copley Medal: John Theophilus Desaguliers^[7]

Births

• January 19 – James Watt, Scottish mechanical engineer (died 1819)^[8]
• January 25 – Joseph Louis Lagrange, Piedmont-born mathematician (died 1813)
• June 14 – Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, French physicist (died 1806)
• July 12 – Louis Lépecq de La Clôture, French epidemiologist (died 1804)^[9]
• August 19 – Erland Samuel Bring, Swedish mathematician (died 1798)
• November 3 – Christiaan Brunings, Dutch hydraulic engineer (died 1805)
• John Arnold, Cornish-born watchmaker (died 1799)
• Honoré Blanc, French gunsmith (died 1801)

Deaths

• September 16 – Gabriel Fahrenheit, German-born Dutch physicist and engineer (born 1686)
• October 13 – Georges Mareschal, French surgeon (born 1658)^[10]