1800 in science

Events

• January 13 – Royal Institution of Great Britain granted a royal charter.

Astronomy

• The central star of the Ring Nebula is discovered by Friedrich von Hahn: the central star is a white dwarf star with a temperature of between 100,000 and 120,000 K.

Chemistry

• Beryllium is discovered by Johann Bartholomäus Trommsdorff in beryl from Saxony, a new earth; he calls it Agusterde.
• Fulminates are discovered by Edward Howard.
• Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy, begins publication in Paris of the comprehensive chemistry textbook Système des connaissances chimiques et de leurs applications aux phénomènes de la nature et de l'art.

Earth sciences

• October – Volcanic eruption of Mount Guntur in West Java.

Exploration

• The Antipodes Islands, at this time the home of large herds of fur seals, are discovered by the crew of the British ship HMS Reliance.
• Jacques Labillardière publishes Relation du Voyage à la Recherche de la Pérouse in Paris.

Medicine

• March 22 – Company of Surgeons granted a royal charter to become the Royal College of Surgeons in London.
• September – Philippe Pinel publishes Traité médico-philosophique sur l'aliénation mentale ou la manie which marks the beginning of an in-depth change in the approaches and methods of work with "lunatics".
• Xavier Bichat publishes Traité sur les membranes and Recherches physiologiques sur la vie et la mort, pioneering texts in histology and pathology.
• Andrea Vaccà Berlinghieri publishes Traité des maladies vénériennes.
• Georges Cuvier begins publishing his Leçons d'anatomie comparée.

Paleontology

• Cuvier publishes a brief description of the pterodactyl.

Physics

• Alessandro Volta devises the first chemical battery, thereby founding the discipline of electrochemistry.
• Infrared rays are discovered by William Herschel, an English astronomer of German origin.

Technology

• Yeast is discovered as a new way to make beer ferment.
• Robert Fulton builds a practical experimental manually-propelled naval submarine Nautilus in France.
• Henry Maudslay develops the first industrially practical screw-cutting lathe, allowing standardisation of screw thread sizes for the first time, in London.
• The first design for a cast iron twin leaf swing bridge is produced by Ralph Walker for London Docks.

Zoology

• November 4 – Major-General Thomas Davies first describes the superb lyrebird.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Edward Charles Howard

Births

• January 14 – Ludwig von Köchel, Austrian musicologist and botanist
• February 11 – H. Fox Talbot, English pioneer of photography
• February 12 – John Edward Gray, English taxonomist
• February 23 – William Jardine, Scottish naturalist
• February 27 – Robert Willis, English mechanical engineer, phonetician and architectural historian
• March 3 – Heinrich Georg Bronn, German geologist, paleontologist
• March 14 – James Bogardus, American inventor
• April 15 – James Clark Ross, English explorer of the Polar regions
• May 25 – Leonard Jenyns, English natural historian
• July 31 – Friedrich Woehler, German chemist
• August 26 – Félix Archimède Pouchet, French natural scientist
• August 20 – Bernhard Heine, German physician, bone specialist and inventor
• September 22 – George Bentham, English botanist
• October 23 – Henri Milne-Edwards, French zoologist
• December 25 – John Phillips, English geologist
• December 29 – Charles Goodyear, American inventor of the vulcanization process
• Anna Volkova, Russian chemist

Deaths

• January 1 – Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton, French naturalist
• January 16 – Johann Christian Wiegleb, German chemist
• March 14 – Daines Barrington, English naturalist
• March 29 – Marc René, marquis de Montalembert, French military engineer
• May 23 – Henry Cort, English ironmaster
• June 20 – Abraham Gotthelf Kästner, German mathematician
• July 14 – Lorenzo Mascheroni, Italian mathematician
• September 10 – Johann David Schoepff, German naturalist and physician
• October 4 – Johann Hermann, German physician, naturalist
• November 5 – Jesse Ramsden, English scientific instrument maker
• December – Jean-Baptiste Audebert, French natural history painter
• December 30 – Thomas Dimsdale, English physician, banker and politician, pioneer of variolation