1753 in science
The year 1753 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Ruđer Bošković's De lunae atmosphaera demonstrates the lack of atmosphere on the Moon.
Botany
- May 1 – Publication of Linnaeus' Species Plantarum, the start of formal scientific classification of plants.
- June – Establishment in Florence of the Accademia dei Georgofili, the world's oldest society devoted to agronomy and scientific agriculture.
Chemistry
- Claude François Geoffroy demonstrates that bismuth is distinct from lead and tin.
Computer science
- January 1 – Retrospectively, the minimum date value for a datetime field in an SQL Server due to this being the first full year since Britain's adoption of the Gregorian calendar.
Medicine
- James Lind publishes the first edition of A Treatise on the Scurvy.
Physics
- November 25 – The Russian Academy of Sciences announces a competition among chemists and physicists to provide "the best explanation of the true causes of electricity including their theory"; the prize will be won in 1755 by Johann Euler.
Technology
- February 17 – The concept of electrical telegraphy is first published in the form of a letter from 'C. M.' to The Scots' Magazine.
- Benjamin Franklin invents the lightning rod, to ring a bell when struck by lightning, following his 1752 kite and key tests.
- George Semple uses hydraulic lime cement in rebuilding Essex Bridge in Dublin.
Awards
Births
- March 26 – Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, Anglo-American physicist
- April 28 – Franz Karl Achard, chemist
- August 3 – Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope, British statesman and scientist
Deaths
- August 6 – Georg Wilhelm Richmann, Russian physicist, electrocuted
- December – Thomas Melvill, Scottish natural philosopher