1753 in science

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

• Copley Medal: Benjamin Franklin

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