1656 in science
The year 1656 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Christiaan Huygens discovers that Saturn's planetary rings consist of rocks.
Botany
- Publication in Vienna of Michał Boym's Flora Sinensis, the first book that uses the name "Flora" in this meaning, a book covering the plant world of a region.
Medicine
- Louis XIV commissions the architect Libéral Bruant to build the Hospice de la Salpêtrière hospital in Paris.
- Physician Samuel Stockhausen of the metal mining town of Goslar in Lower Saxony publishes his Libellus de lithargyrii fumo noxio morbifico, ejusque metallico frequentiori morbo vulgò dicto die Hütten Katze oder Hütten Rauch, a pioneering study of occupational disease.
Technology
- December 25 – Christiaan Huygens designs the first working pendulum clock, which is sufficiently accurate to be fitted with both a minute hand and a second hand.
Publications
- Thomas Willis publishes De Fermentatione.
Births
- June 5 – Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, French botanist
- October 29 – Edmond Halley, English astronomer