1740 in science
The year 1740 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Mathematics
- Jean Paul de Gua de Malves publishes his work of analytic geometry,.
Metallurgy
- Benjamin Huntsman develops the technique of crucible steel production at Handsworth, South Yorkshire, England.
Physics
- Jacques-Barthélemy Micheli du Crest creates a spirit thermometer, making use of two fixed points, 0 for "Temperature of earth" based on a cave at Paris Observatory and 100 for the heat of boiling water.
- Émilie du Châtelet publishes Institutions de Physique, including a demonstration that the energy of a moving object is proportional to the square of its velocity.
- Louis Bertrand Castel publishes L'Optique des couleurs in Paris, including the observation that the colours of white light split by a prism depend on distance from the prism.
Technology
- Henry Hindley of Yorkshire invents a device to cut the teeth of clock wheels.
Awards
Births
- February 17 – Horace Bénédict de Saussure, Genevan pioneer of Alpine studies
- March 28 – James Small, Scottish inventor
- June 27 – John Latham, English physician and naturalist, "grandfather of Australian ornithology"
- July 1 – Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein, Austrian mineralogist and discoverer of tellurium
- August 26 – Joseph Michel Montgolfier, French pioneer balloonist
- September 29 – Thomas Percival, English reforming physician and medical ethicist
- December 24 – Anders Johan Lexell, Finnish-Swedish astronomer and mathematician unknown – William Smellie, Scottish naturalist and encyclopedist
Deaths
- March 23 – Olof Rudbeck the Younger, Swedish naturalist.