1771 in science
The year 1771 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Lagrange discusses how numerous astronomical observations should be combined so as to give the most probable result.
Chemistry
- British apothecary Thomas Henry invents a process for preparing magnesium oxide.
Exploration
- August 17 – Edinburgh botanist James Robertson makes the first recorded ascent of Ben Nevis in Scotland.
Mathematics
- Lagrange publishes his second paper on the general process for solving an algebraic equation of any degree via Lagrange resolvents; and proves Wilson's theorem that if n is a prime, then ! + 1 is always a multiple of n.
Medicine
- Norfolk and Norwich Hospital founded in England.
Events
- March 15 – Society of Civil Engineers first meets, the world's oldest engineering society.
- December 16 – French chemist Antoine Lavoisier marries Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, not yet 14 and daughter of his senior in the Ferme générale.
Publications
- Louis Antoine de Bougainville publishes Le voyage autour du monde, par la frégate La Boudeuse, et la flûte L'Étoile.
- Peter Simon Pallas begins publication of Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs, chronicling his ongoing scientific expedition through the Russian Empire.
- Arthur Young publishes The Farmer's Kalendar.
Awards
Births
- April 13 – Richard Trevithick, Cornish mechanical engineer and inventor.
- August 22 – Henry Maudslay, English mechanical engineer and inventor.
- September 11 – Mungo Park, Scottish explorer.
- October 13 – Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim, Saxon-born naturalist.
- November 6 – Alois Senefelder, Prague-born German inventor of lithography.
- December 14 – Regina von Siebold, German physician and obstetrician.
Deaths
- February 20 – Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, French geophysicist, astronomer and chronobiologist
- March 17 – Chester Moore Hall, English scientific instrument maker
- March 23 – Henry Hindley, English clock and scientific instrument maker
- December 6 – Giovanni Battista Morgagni, Italian anatomist
- December 15 – Benjamin Stillingfleet, English botanist