1828 in science

The year 1828 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• Félix Savary computes the first orbit of a visual double star when he calculates the orbit of the double star Xi Ursae Majoris.

Biology

• April 18 – Ornithologist Carl Julian (von) Graba lands in the little-studied Faroe Islands for a 3-month visit to research the bird life.
• April 27 – London Zoo opens in Regent's Park for members of the Zoological Society of London, the first scientific zoo in the United Kingdom.^[1]
• October 26 – English naturalist and explorer William John Burchell collects the only known specimen of Parabouchetia brasiliensis, an exceptionally rare member of the nightshade family Solanaceae, in central Brazil.
• Karl Ernst von Baer lays the foundations of the science of comparative embryology with his book Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere. He publishes von Baer's laws.
• Martin Lichtenstein publishes a monograph on the Dipodidae, Über die Springmäuse, in Berlin.
• Belfast Botanic Gardens open.

Chemistry

• Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius produces a table of atomic weights and discovers thorium.
• Urea becomes the first organic compound to be artificially synthesised, by Friedrich Wöhler, establishing that organic compounds could be produced from inorganic starting materials and potentially disproving a cornerstone of vitalism, the belief that life is not subject to the laws of science in the way inanimate objects are.^[2][3]
• The van Houten family of the Netherlands invent a press to remove about 50% of the cocoa butter from chocolate.^[4]

Medicine

• February 19 – The Boston Society for Medical Improvement is established in the United States.
• April 17 – Royal Free Hospital, established as the London General Institution for the Gratuitous Care of Malignant Diseases by surgeon William Marsden, opens.
• December 20 – The U.S. State of Georgia legislature charters the Medical Academy of Georgia, which becomes the Medical College of Georgia, and authorizes it to award a Bachelor of Medicine degree, making it the 13th oldest U.S. medical school and the 6th public medical school to be established.
• December 24 – Burke and Hare murders: William Burke is sentenced to hang for his part in the murder of 17 victims to provide bodies for dissection by Edinburgh anatomist Robert Knox.
• F. Maury publishes Traité Complet de l'Art du Dentiste, the first handbook of dentistry.^[5]

Paleontology

• January 7 – Rev. Henry Duncan describes his discovery of the fossil footmarks of quadrupeds (Chelichnus duncani) in Permian red sandstone in south west Scotland, the first scientific report of a fossil track.^[6]
• December – Mary Anning discovers Britain's first pterosaur fossil at Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast of England.
• Adolphe Theodore Brongniart publishes Prodrome d'une histoire des Végétaux Fossils, a study of fossil plants.

Physics

• Self-taught English mathematician George Green publishes An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism^[7] in Nottingham, the first mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism, introducing a form of divergence theorem (a version of Green's theorem), the idea of potential theory, and the concept of what will come to be called Green's functions.^[8][9]
• Irish astronomer William Rowan Hamilton publishes Theory of Systems of Rays.

Technology

• October 1 – James Beaumont Neilson of Scotland patents the hot blast process for ironmaking.^[10]
• Ányos Jedlik creates the world's first electric motor.
• The brothers John and Charles Deane produce the first diving helmet by adaptation of a smoke helmet produced for them by Augustus Siebe.^[11]
• Scottish architect Peter Nicholson sets out a method of preparing stones for construction of a helicoidal skew arch.^[12][13][14]
• John Deats obtains his first United States patent for an improved plow.

Institutions

• Imperial Petersburg Institute of Technology established in the Russian Empire.

Awards

• Copley Medal: not awarded^[15]

Births

• April 17
  • Sampson Gamgee (died 1886), Tuscan-born English surgeon.
  • Johanna Mestorf (died 1909), German prehistoric archaeologist.
• March 24 – Jules Verne (died 1905), French science fiction author.
• April 29 – Étienne Stéphane Tarnier (died 1897), French obstetrician.
• May 8 – Jean Henri Dunant (died 1910), Swiss founder of the Red Cross.
• June 21 – Ferdinand André Fouqué (died 1904), French geologist and petrologist.
• July 23 – Jonathan Hutchinson (died 1913), English physician.
• August 6 – Andrew Taylor Still (died 1917), American "father of osteopathy".
• August 28 – William A. Hammond (died 1900), American military physician and neurologist.
• September 15 – Aleksandr Butlerov (died 1886), Russian chemist.
• October 31 – Joseph Swan (died 1914), English surgeon.
• November 22 – Lydia Shackleton (died 1914), Irish botanical artist.

Deaths

• March 17 – James Edward Smith (born 1759), English botanist.
• March 23 – David Friesenhausen (born 1756), German-Hungarian-Jewish rabbi, mathematician and astronomer.
• July 5 – Andrew Duncan (born 1744), Scottish physician.
• August 8 – Carl Peter Thunberg (born 1743), Swedish botanist.
• August 22 – Franz Joseph Gall (born 1758), German-born neuroanatomist.
• September 3 - Jean Boniface Textoris (born 1773), French military surgeon.^[16]
• December 22 – William Hyde Wollaston (born 1766), English chemist.