1774 in science

The year 1774 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• Johann Elert Bode discovers the galaxy Messier 81.
• Lagrange publishes a paper on the motion of the nodes of a planet's orbit.

Biology

• Italian physicist Abbé Bonaventura Corti publishes Osservazioni microscopiche sulla tremella e sulla circulazione del fluido in una pianta acquajuola in Lucca, including his discovery of cyclosis in plant cells.^[1]
• French physician Antoine Parmentier publishes Examen chymique des pommes de terres in Paris, analysing the nutritional value of the potato.

Chemistry

• August 1 – Joseph Priestley, working at Bowood House, Wiltshire, England, isolates oxygen in the form of a gas, which he calls "dephlogisticated air".^[2]
• Antoine Lavoisier publishes his first book, a literature review on the composition of air, Opuscules physiques et chimiques.
• Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers "dephlogisticated muriatic acid" (chlorine), manganese and barium.

Exploration

• Second voyage of James Cook
  • June 16/17 – English explorer Captain Cook becomes the first European to sight (and name) Palmerston Island in the Pacific Ocean.
  • September 4 – Cook becomes the first European to sight (and name) the island of New Caledonia in Melanesia.
  • October 10 – Cook becomes the first European to sight (and name) Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean, uninhabited at this date.

Mathematics

• P.-S. Laplace publishes Mémoire sur la probabilité des causes par les événements, including a restatement of Bayes' theorem.^[3]

Medicine and physiology

• William Hunter's Anatomia uteri humani gravidi tabulis illustrata | The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus exhibited in figures is published by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England.
• Sugita Genpaku's Kaitai Shinsho ("New Text on Anatomy"), based on a Dutch publication, is published with illustrations in Japan, the first modern anatomy textbook produced there.

Physics

• The Schiehallion experiment is carried out by Nevil Maskelyne to determine the mean density of the Earth.^[4]

Technology

• January 27 – John Wilkinson patents a method for boring cannon from the solid, subsequently utilised for accurate boring of steam engine cylinders.^[5]
• Jesse Ramsden produces an advanced circular dividing engine with the support of the Board of Longitude.^[6][7]

Awards

• Copley Medal: Not awarded^[8]

Births

• April 21 – Jean-Baptiste Biot (died 1862), French physicist.
• April 24 – Jean Marc Gaspard Itard (died 1838), French otorhinolaryngologist.
• April 28 – Francis Baily (died 1844), English astronomer.
• May 7 – Francis Beaufort (died 1856), Irish-born hydrographer.
• May 28 – Edward Howard (died 1816), English chemist.
• August 18 – Meriwether Lewis (died 1809), American explorer.
• September 26 – John Chapman (died 1845), American nurseryman.
• November 12 – Charles Bell (died 1842), Scottish-born anatomist.
• December 12 – William Henry (died 1836), English chemist.

Deaths

• February 4 – Charles Marie de La Condamine, French geographer (born 1701)
• May 1 – William Hewson, English surgeon, anatomist and physiologist, "father of haematology" (born 1739)
• July 9 – Anna Morandi Manzolini, Italian anatomist (born 1714)^[9]