1754 in science
The year 1754 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Immanuel Kant, German philosopher, postulates retardation of Earth's orbit.
Chemistry
- Joseph Black, Scottish chemist, discovers carbonic acid gas.
Earth sciences
- Albert Brahms, Frisian Dijkgraaf, begins publication of Anfangsgründe der Deich und Wasser-Baukunst advocating scientific recording of tides.
Mathematics
- Joshua Kirby publishes the pamphlet Dr. Brook Taylor's Method of Perspective made Easy both in Theory and Practice containing William Hogarth's Satire on False Perspective.
- Lagrange begins to work on the problem of tautochrone.
Physics
- Václav Prokop Diviš, Czech theologian and natural scientist in the fields of applied electricity, develops a weather-machine. The same year, an electrical conductor devised by him is installed at the Vienna General Hospital.
Awards
Births
- March 4 – Benjamin Waterhouse, American physician
- March 15 – Archibald Menzies, Scottish surgeon and botanist
- March 23 – Jurij Vega, Slovene mathematician, physicist and artillery officer
- May 6 – Thomas Coke, English agriculturalist and geneticist
- June 4 – Franz Xaver, Baron Von Zach, German astronomer
- August 21 – William Murdoch, Scottish engineer and inventor
- September 26 – Joseph Proust, French chemist
Deaths
- February 5 – Nicolaas Kruik, Dutch cartographer and meteorologist
- February 16 – Richard Mead, English physician
- April 9 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher, mathematician and scientist
- April 15 – Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician
- November 27 – Abraham de Moivre, French mathematician