1756 in science
The year 1756 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Chemistry
- Joseph Black describes how carbonates become more alkaline when they lose carbon dioxide, whereas the taking-up of carbon dioxide reconverts them.
- Scottish physician Francis Home publishes Experiments on Bleaching in Edinburgh.
- Mikhail Lomonosov disproves the phlogiston theory of combustion and pioneers the study of oxidation by converting tin to stannic oxide.
History of science
- Thomas Birch begins publication of The History of the Royal Society of London.
Technology
- John Smeaton produces the first high-quality cement using hydraulic lime since Roman times for construction of the third Eddystone Lighthouse.
- The recipe for mayonnaise is probably brought back to France by his chef after Louis François Armand du Plessis, duc de Richelieu's military success on Menorca.
Awards
- Copley Medal: Not awarded
Births
- June 4 – Jean-Antoine Chaptal, French chemist who names nitrogen in 1790
- September 21 – John Loudon McAdam, Scottish highway engineer
- November 30 – Ernst Chladni, German physicist
- December 26 – Bernard-Germain-Étienne de La Ville-sur-Illon, French naturalist
- David Friesenhausen, German-Hungarian-Jewish rabbi, mathematician and astronomer