1790 in science
The year 1790 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Armagh Observatory, founded in Ireland by Richard Robinson, 1st Baron Rokeby, Archbishop of Armagh, begins to function.
- Johann Tobias Lowitz observes a complex halo display in St. Petersburg.
Biology
- English ornithologist John Latham publishes his Index Ornithologicus, including a scientific description of the black swan.
- English botanical illustrator James Sowerby begins publication of his English Botany, with text by James E. Smith.
- Goethe publishes Metamorphosis of Plants.
Chemistry
- July 31 – Samuel Hopkins of Vermont is granted a patent for a potash production technique, the first issued under the 1st United States Congress's Patent Act of 1790.
- Publication in Montpellier of Jean-Antoine Chaptal's Élémens de chimie, in which he coins the word nitrogen.
- Adair Crawford, working with William Cruickshank, proposes the existence of the alkaline earth metal located near Strontian in Scotland which will later be isolated at strontium.
Physiology and medicine
- First recorded case of artificial insemination when British surgeon John Hunter helps impregnate a linen draper's wife.
Technology
- January 30 – Henry Greathead's Original rescue life-boat is tested on the River Tyne in England.
Awards
- Copley Medal: Not awarded
Births
- February 3 – Gideon Mantell, English paleontologist
- March 12 – John Frederic Daniell, English chemist and physicist
- May 23 – Jules Dumont d'Urville, French explorer
- May 30 – John Herapath, English physicist
- July 4 – George Everest, Welsh surveyor and geographer
- October 25 – Robert Stirling, Scottish inventor
- November 17 – August Ferdinand Möbius, German mathematician
- December 9 – Friederike Lienig, Latvian entomologist
- December 19 – William Edward Parry, English Arctic explorer
Deaths
- February 5 – William Cullen, Scottish physician and chemist
- March 22 – Anthony Addington, English physician
- April 17 – Benjamin Franklin, American statesman and polymath, known for his experiments with electricity
- July 17 – Johann II Bernoulli, Swiss mathematician