1774 in science
The year 1774 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Johann Elert Bode discovers the galaxy Messier 81.
- Lagrange publishes a paper on the motion of the nodes of a planet's orbit.
Biology
- Italian physicist Abbé Bonaventura Corti publishes Osservazioni microscopiche sulla tremella e sulla circulazione del fluido in una pianta acquajuola in Lucca, including his discovery of cyclosis in plant cells.
- French physician Antoine Parmentier publishes Examen chymique des pommes de terres in Paris, analysing the nutritional value of the potato.
Chemistry
- August 1 – Joseph Priestley, working at Bowood House, Wiltshire, England, isolates oxygen in the form of a gas, which he calls "dephlogisticated air".
- Antoine Lavoisier publishes his first book, a literature review on the composition of air, Opuscules physiques et chimiques.
- Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovers "dephlogisticated muriatic acid", manganese and barium.
Exploration
- Second voyage of James Cook
- * June 16/17 – English explorer Captain Cook becomes the first European to sight Palmerston Island in the Pacific Ocean.
- * September 4 – Cook becomes the first European to sight the island of New Caledonia in Melanesia.
- * October 10 – Cook becomes the first European to sight Norfolk Island in the Pacific Ocean, uninhabited at this date.
Mathematics
- P.-S. Laplace publishes Mémoire sur la probabilité des causes par les événements, including a restatement of Bayes' theorem.
Medicine and physiology
- William Hunter's Anatomia uteri humani gravidi tabulis illustrata | The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus exhibited in figures is published by John Baskerville in Birmingham, England.
- Sugita Genpaku's Kaitai Shinsho, based on a Dutch publication, is published with illustrations in Japan, the first modern anatomy textbook produced there.
Physics
- The Schiehallion experiment is carried out by Nevil Maskelyne to determine the mean density of the Earth.
Technology
- January 27 – John Wilkinson patents a method for boring cannon from the solid, subsequently utilised for accurate boring of steam engine cylinders.
- Jesse Ramsden produces an advanced circular dividing engine with the support of the Board of Longitude.
Awards
- Copley Medal: Not awarded
Births
- April 21 – Jean-Baptiste Biot, French physicist.
- April 24 – Jean Marc Gaspard Itard, French otorhinolaryngologist.
- April 28 – Francis Baily, English astronomer.
- May 7 – Francis Beaufort, Irish-born hydrographer.
- May 28 – Edward Howard, English chemist.
- August 18 – Meriwether Lewis, American explorer.
- September 26 – John Chapman, American nurseryman.
- November 12 – Charles Bell, Scottish-born anatomist.
- December 12 – William Henry, English chemist.
Deaths
- February 4 – Charles Marie de La Condamine, French geographer
- May 1 – William Hewson, English surgeon, anatomist and physiologist, "father of haematology"
- July 9 – Anna Morandi Manzolini, Italian anatomist