1703 in science
The year 1703 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Biology
- Charles Plumier's Nova plantarum Americanarum genera begins publication in Paris. This includes descriptions of Fuchsia, discovered by him on Hispaniola, and naming of the genus Magnolia, applied to species from Martinique.
Chemistry
- Georg Ernst Stahl, professor of medicine and chemistry at the University of Halle, proposes phlogiston theory in the way it comes to be generally understood.
Earth sciences
- An early, crude seismograph is developed by the French physicist Abbé Jean de Hautefeuille.
Mathematics
- Gottfried Leibniz publishes a first description of binary numbers in the West.
- Leonty Magnitsky's Arithmetic is published, a scientific book in the Russian language.
Meteorology
- December 7–10 – Great Storm of 1703, an extratropical cyclone, ravages southern England and the English Channel, killing at least 8,000, mostly at sea. The Eddystone Lighthouse off Plymouth is destroyed in the storm together with its designer Henry Winstanley.
Institutions
- November 30 – Isaac Newton is elected president of the Royal Society of London, a position he will hold until his death in 1727.
- Richard Mead is admitted to the Royal Society, is elected physician to St Thomas' Hospital, and is appointed to read anatomical lectures at Surgeon's Hall, all in London.
Births
- January 8 – André Levret, French obstetrician
- January 15 – Johann Ernst Hebenstreit, German physician and naturalist
- June 21 – Joseph Lieutaud, French physician
- August 23 – Robert James, English physician
- September 15 – Guillaume-François Rouelle, French chemist and apothecary
- October 28 – Antoine Deparcieux, French mathematician
- November 25 – Jean-François Séguier, French astronomer and botanist
- December 2 – Ferdinand Konščak, Croatian explorer
- December 9 – Chester Moore Hall, English scientific instrument maker
- December 24 – Aleksei Chirikov, Russian explorer
Deaths
- March 3 – Robert Hooke, English scientist
- March 20 – Johann von Löwenstern-Kunckel, German chemist
- September 22 – Vincenzo Viviani, Italian mathematician and scientist
- October 28 – John Wallis, English mathematician