1672 in science

The year 1672 in science and technology involved some significant events.

List of years in science (table)
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Astronomy

• John Flamsteed determines the solar parallax from observations of Mars.
• Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn.
• Sir Isaac Newton reads his first Optiks paper before the Royal Society of London.

Botany

• Robert Morison publishes Plantarum Umbelliferarum Distributio Nova, per Tabulas Cognationis et Affinitatis, ex Libra Naturae observata et detecta, the first monograph devoted to a specific group of plants, the Umbelliferae.[1]

Mathematics

• Georg Mohr publishes the Mohr–Mascheroni theorem, that any geometric construction that can be performed by a compass and straightedge can be performed by a compass alone.[2][3]

Medicine

• Paul Barbette publishes Opera omnia medica et chirurgica.
• Richard Lower publishes De Catarrhis, the first scholarly attempt by an English physician to take a classical doctrine (the theory that nasal catarrh is caused by secretions overspilling from the brain) and to disprove it by scientific experiment.
• Isbrand van Diemerbroeck publishes the first edition of his Anatome corporis humani in Utrecht.
• Thomas Willis publishes the earliest English work on medical psychology, Two Discourses concerning The Soul of Brutes, Which is that of the Vital and Sensitive of Man.[4]

Technology

• Dutch painter Jan van der Heyden improves the fire hose, with his brother Nicolaes, a hydraulic engineer.

Births

• February 13 – Étienne François Geoffroy, French chemist (died 1731)
• August 2 – Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Swiss natural historian (died 1733)
• Ann Baynard, English natural philosopher (died 1697)

Deaths

• March – Peter Blondeau, French-born pioneer of mechanised minting of coin
• April 26 – Lionel Lockyer, English quack doctor (born c. 1600)
• July 3 – Francis Willughby, English ornithologist and ichthyologist, pleurisy (born 1635)
• November 19 – Bishop John Wilkins, English natural philosopher, co-founder of the Royal Society (born 1614)
• late – Semyon Dezhnev, Pomor navigator who in 1648 made the first recorded voyage through the Bering Strait (born c. 1605)

References

1. Oliver, Francis Wall (1913). "Robert Morison 1620–1683...". Makers of British Botany. Cambridge University Press. pp. 15–16.
2. Mohr, Georg (1672). Euclides Danicus. Amsterdam: Jacob van Velsen.
3. Crilly, Tony (2007). 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know. London: Quercus. p. 80. ISBN 978-1-84724-008-8.
4. "Thomas Willis". Whonamedit?. Retrieved 2011-03-15.