1844 in science
The year 1844 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Astronomy
- August 10 – German astronomer Friedrich Bessel deduces from the motion of the bright stars Sirius and Procyon that they have dark companions.
Biology
- June 3 – The last definitely recorded pair of great auks are killed on the Icelandic island of Eldey.
- August 1 – Opening of Berlin Zoological Garden.
- Gabriel Gustav Valentin notes the digestive activity of pancreatic juice.
- George Robert Gray begins publication in London of The Genera of Birds.
- Joseph Dalton Hooker begins publication of The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror... 1839–1843 in London.
Chemistry
- Karl Klaus discovers ruthenium.
- Professor Gustaf Erik Pasch of Stockholm is granted the privilege of manufacturing a safety match.
- French chemist Adolphe Wurtz reports the first synthesis of copper hydride, a well-known reducing agent and catalyst in organic chemistry.
Earth sciences
- Robert Chambers' anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which paves the way for acceptance of Darwin's The Origin of Species, is published in Britain.
Mathematics
- Joseph Liouville finds the first transcendental number.
- Hermann Grassmann studies vectors with more than three dimensions.
Medicine
- Irish physician Francis Rynd utilises a hollow hypodermic needle to make the first recorded subcutaneous injections, specifically of a sedative to treat neuralgia.
Metrology
- Joseph Whitworth introduces the thou.
Physics
- William Robert Grove publishes The Correlation of Physical Forces, the first comprehensive account of the conservation of energy.
Technology
- January 30 – Charles Goodyear patents the vulcanisation of rubber in the United States.
- May 11 – Samuel Morse sends the first message using Morse code.
- June – Henry Fox Talbot commences publication of the first book illustrated with photographs from a camera, The Pencil of Nature.
- Uriah A. Boyden develops an improved outward-flow water turbine.
- Robert Bunsen invents the grease-spot photometer.
- Thomas and Caleb Pratt design the Pratt truss bridge.
- Dublin iron-founder Richard Turner begins assembling components for the Palm house at Kew Gardens in London, the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron.
- Egide Walschaerts of the Belgian State Railways originates Walschaerts valve gear for the steam locomotive.
Events
- July 27 – Death of English chemist and physicist John Dalton in Manchester where his body lies in honour in the Town Hall and more than 40,000 people file past his coffin.
Awards
- Copley Medal: Carlo Matteucci
- Wollaston Medal for Geology: William Conybeare
Births
- February 1 – G. Stanley Hall, American psychologist.
- February 7 – Alexei Pavlovich Fedchenko, Russian naturalist.
- February 20 – Ludwig Boltzmann, Austrian physicist famous for the invention of statistical mechanics.
- March 25 – Adolf Engler, German botanist.
- June 10 – Carl Hagenbeck, German zoologist.
- July 1 – H. Newell Martin, British physiologist.
- August 6 – James Henry Greathead, South African-born English civil engineer.
- August 13 – Friedrich Miescher, Swiss biochemist.
- August 22 – George W. DeLong, American Arctic explorer.
- September 11 – Henry Alleyne Nicholson, English paleontologist and zoologist.
- October 3 – Patrick Manson, Scottish parasitologist, the "father of tropical medicine".
- October 28 – Mary Katharine Brandegee née Layne, American botanist.
- November 25 – Karl Benz, German automotive engineer.
- Varvara Rudneva, Russian physician.
Deaths
- June 19 – Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, French naturalist.
- July 27 – John Dalton, English chemist and physicist.
- August 30 – Francis Baily, English astronomer.
- December 28 – Thomas Henderson, Scottish astronomer.