1678 in science
The year 1678 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Edmund Halley publishes a catalogue of 341 southern stars—the first systematic southern sky survey.
Physics
- Christiaan Huygens publishes his Traité de la Lumière/Treatise on Light, which states his principle of wavefront sources.
- Robert Hooke publishes in full Hooke's law, the fundamental law of elasticity: stress exerted is proportional to the strain produced.
Zoology
- Publication of English Spiders by Martin Lister, the first book devoted to spiders.
Births
- April 14 – Abraham Darby I, ironmaster
- July 16 – Jakob Hermann, mathematician
- October 27 – Pierre Raymond de Montmort, mathematician
- November 26 – Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, geophysicist
- December 2 – Nicolaas Kruik, cartographer and meteorologist unknown – Pierre Fauchard, physician and "father of modern dentistry"