1807 in science

The year 1807 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

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Astronomy

• March 29 – H. W. Olbers discovers the asteroid which Carl Friedrich Gauss names Vesta.^[1]

Chemistry

• Potassium and sodium are isolated by Sir Humphry Davy.
• The use of fulminate in firearms is patented by Scottish clergyman Alexander John Forsyth.^[2]

Geology

• The Geological Society is founded in London; among the more prominent founders are William Babington, James Parkinson, Humphry Davy and George Bellas Greenough.

Mathematics

• William Wallace proves that any two simple polygons of equal area are equidecomposable, later known as the Wallace–Bolyai–Gerwien theorem.^[3]

Medicine

• Samuel Hahnemann first introduces the term 'homeopathy' in an essay, "Indications of the Homeopathic Employment of Medicines in Ordinary Practice", published in Versammlung der Hufelandische medicinisch-chirurgischen Gesellschaft.^[4]
• British Army surgeon John Vetch describes the keratoconjunctivitis ("Egyptian ophthalmia") suffered by troops returned from service overseas;^[5] he identifies it as epidemic.^[6]

Technology

• July 20 – French brothers Claude and Nicéphore Niépce receive a patent for their Pyréolophore, an early internal combustion engine, having demonstrated it powering a boat on the Saône.
• August 17 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat makes her first trip from New York City to Albany.
• November 19 – English inventor Lionel Lukin launches the world's first sailing self-righting rescue life-boat, the Frances Anne, at Lowestoft.^[7]
• William Cubitt patents self-regulating sails for windmills.^[8]
• Henry Maudslay patents an improved table engine.
• William Hyde Wollaston patents the camera lucida.^[9]

Zoology

• April 21 – The Tasmanian devil is first described, by George Prideaux Robert Harris.^[10]

Publications

• Alexander von Humboldt's Le Voyage aux Régions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait en 1799–1804, par Alexandre de Humboldt et Aimé Bonpland begins publication.
• Thomas Young's A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts published.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Everard Home^[11]

Births

• January 28 – Robert McClure, Irish-born Arctic explorer (died 1873)
• May 28 – Louis Agassiz, Swiss-born American zoologist and geologist (died 1873)
• November 14 – Auguste Laurent, French chemist (died 1853)
• November 30 – William Farr, English epidemiologist (died 1883)

Deaths

• February 27 – Louise du Pierry, French astronomer (born 1746)
• April 4 – Jérôme Lalande, French astronomer (born 1732)
• December 5 – Francis Willis, English physician specialising in mental disorders (born 1718)