1842 in science
The year 1842 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Biochemistry
- October 5 – Josef Groll brews the first pilsner light lager beer in the city of Pilsen, Bohemia.
Botany
- Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward publishes On the Growth of Plants in Closely Glazed Cases in London, promoting his concept of the Wardian case.
Exploration
- Antarctic explorer James Clark Ross charts the eastern side of James Ross Island and on January 23 reaches a Farthest South of 78°09'30"S.
Medicine
- January – American medical student William E. Clarke of Berkshire Medical College becomes the first person to administer an inhaled anesthetic to facilitate a surgical procedure. After Clarke uses a towel and ether to anesthetize a patient identified as "Miss Hobbie", Dr. Elijah Pope carries out a dental extraction.
- March 30 – American physician and pharmacist Crawford Long administers an inhaled anesthetic to facilitate a surgical procedure.
- English surgeon William Bowman publishes On the Structure and Use of the Malpighian Bodies of the Kidney, identifying Bowman's capsule, a key component of the nephron.
- Edwin Chadwick's critical Report on an inquiry into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain is published by the Poor Law Commission.
Paleontology
- British palaeontologist Richard Owen coins the name Dinosauria, hence the Anglicized dinosaur.
Physics
- Christian Doppler proposes the Doppler effect.
- Julius Robert von Mayer proposes that work and heat are equivalent. This is independently discovered in 1843 by James Prescott Joule, who names it "mechanical equivalent of heat".
Technology
- January 8 – Delft University of Technology established by William II of the Netherlands as a 'Royal Academy for the education of civilian engineers'.
- February 21 – John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.
- June – James Nasmyth patents his design of steam hammer in England and introduces an improved planing machine.
- John Herschel discovers the cyanotype photographic process in England.
- The Lancashire Loom, a semi-automatic power loom for weaving cotton fabric, is invented by James Bullough and William Kenworthy in Blackburn.
Events
- September 14–17 – English naturalist Charles Darwin and his family settle at Down House in Kent.
Awards
Births
- February 2 – Julian Sochocki, Polish mathematician.
- February 10 – Agnes Mary Clerke Irish astronomer and author.
- February 22 – Camille Flammarion, French astronomer.
- March 17 – Rosina Heikel, Finnish physician.
- March 23 – Susan Jane Cunningham, American mathematician.
- April 4 – Édouard Lucas, Belgian physician.
- May 8 – Emil Christian Hansen, Danish fermentation physiologist.
- June 11 – Carl von Linde, German refrigeration engineer.
- August 23 – Osborne Reynolds, Irish-born physicist.
- September 9 – Elliott Coues, American ornithologist.
- September 20
- * James Dewar, Scottish-born chemist.
- * Charles Lapworth, English geologist.
- October 17 – Gustaf Retzius, Swedish anatomist.
- October 24 – Nikolai Menshutkin, Russian chemist.
- November 12 – John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, English Nobel Prize-winning physicist.
- December 3 – Ellen Swallow Richards, American chemist.
- December 17 – Sophus Lie, Norwegian mathematician.
Deaths
- February 15 – Archibald Menzies, Scottish-born botanist.
- April 28 – Charles Bell, Scottish-born anatomist.
- May 8 – Jules Dumont d'Urville, French explorer.
- June 9 – Maria Dalle Donne, Bolognese physician
- June 30 – Thomas Coke, Earl of Leicester, English agriculturalist and geneticist.
- July 19 – Pierre Joseph Pelletier, French chemist.
- July 25 – Dominique Jean Larrey, French military surgeon, pioneer of battlefield medicine.