1803 in science

The year 1803 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• April 26 – A meteorite shower falls on L'Aigle in Normandy; Jean Baptiste Biot demonstrates that it is of extraterrestrial origin.

Botany

• Publication (posthumously) of André Michaux's Flora Boreali-Americana in Paris, the first flora of North America.
• University of Tartu Botanical Gardens established.

Chemistry

• January 1 – William Henry's formulation of his law on the solubility of gases first published.
• September 3 – English scientist John Dalton starts using symbols to represent the atoms of different chemical elements.
• October 21 – John Dalton's atomic theory and list of molecular weights first made known, at a lecture in Manchester.
• William Hyde Wollaston discovers the chemical element rhodium.
• Smithson Tennant discovers the chemical elements iridium and osmium.
• Cerium is discovered in Bastnäs (Sweden) by Jöns Jakob Berzelius and Wilhelm Hisinger, and independently in Germany by Martin Heinrich Klaproth.
• Claude Louis Berthollet publishes Essai de statique chimique in Paris.

Exploration

• June 9 – Matthew Flinders completes the first known circumnavigation of Australia.

Mathematics

• Gian Francesco Malfatti presents his conjecture regarding Malfatti circles.

Medicine

• Jean Marc Gaspard Itard first recognises pneumothorax.
• Dr Thomas Percival of Manchester publishes his Medical Ethics; or, a Code of Institutes and Precepts, Adapted to the Professional Conduct of Physicians and Surgeons, coining the expression medical ethics.

Meteorology

• Luke Howard publishes the basis of the modern classification and nomenclature of clouds.

Technology

• Robert Ransome invents the self-sharpening chilled cast-iron ploughshare in Ipswich, England.
• The first Fourdrinier continuous papermaking machine is installed in Hertfordshire, England.

Transport

• January 4 – William Symington demonstrates his Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat", in Scotland.
• July 26 – The Surrey Iron Railway, a wagonway between Wandsworth and Croydon, is opened, being the first public railway line in England.
• Thomas Telford begins work on construction of the Caledonian Canal and improving roads in Scotland.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Richard Chenevix

Births

• February 26 – Arnold Adolph Berthold, German physiologist (died 1861)
• February 28 – Christian Heinrich von Nagel, German geometer (died 1882)
• April 1 – Miles Joseph Berkeley, English cryptogamist (died 1889)
• May 12 – Justus von Liebig, German chemist (died 1873)
• May 24 – Charles Lucien Bonaparte, French naturalist (died 1857)
• June 8 – Amalia Assur, Swedish dentist (died 1889)
• July 31 – John Ericsson, Swedish-born mechanical engineer and inventor (died 1889)
• October 3 – John Gorrie, American physician and inventor (died 1855)
• October 6 – Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, Prussian physicist and climatologist (died 1879)
• October 16 – Robert Stephenson, English railway engineer (died 1859)
• November 29 – Christian Doppler, Austrian mathematician and discoverer of the Doppler effect (died 1853)
• December 21 – Joseph Whitworth, English mechanical engineer (died 1887)
• Choe Han-gi, Korean philosopher of science (died 1877)

Deaths

• May 8 – John Joseph Merlin, Liège-born English inventor (born 1735)
• October 14 – Ami Argand, Genevan physicist and chemist (born 1750)

References

1. 1803
2. 1803 in archaeology
3. Balmis Expedition
4. 1803 in paleontology
5. 1803 in birding and ornithology
6. Solar eclipse of August 17, 1803
7. Solar eclipse of February 21, 1803
8. 1803 in music
9. History of science
10. 1803 in the United States
11. 1803 in literature
12. 1803 in architecture
13. Orto Botanico dell'Università di Genova
14. L'Aigle (meteorite)
15. April–June 2020 in science
16. Horrocks loom
17. List of years in science
18. History of science and technology on the Indian subcontinent
19. Master of Science
20. French Academy of Sciences