1857 in science

Astronomy

• Peter Andreas Hansen's Tables of the Moon are published in London.

Biology

• Rev. M. J. Berkeley publishes Introduction to Cryptogamic Botany.

Chemistry

• Robert Bunsen invents apparatus for measuring effusion.
• August Kekulé proposes that carbon is tetravalent, or forms exactly four chemical bonds.
• Carl Wilhelm Siemens patents the Siemens cycle.

Earth sciences

• January 9 – The 7.9 Fort Tejon earthquake shakes Central and Southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX. The event, which involves slip on the southern segment of the San Andreas Fault, leaves two people dead.
• Friedrich Albert Fallou publishes Anfangsgründe der Bodenkunde, laying the foundations for the modern study of soil science.

Exploration

• May 16 – The British North American Exploring Expedition, led by Irish geographer Capt. John Palliser, sets off for a three-year exploration of Western Canada.
• Galen Clark becomes the first European American to see the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias in California.

History of science and technology

• The Stockton and Darlington Railway's Locomotion No. 1 of 1825 is set aside for preservation in England.

Mathematics

• William Rowan Hamilton invents the Icosian game.

Medicine

• March 12 – Elizabeth Blackwell opens the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children.
• French surgeon Jean-Louis-Paul Denucé gives the first description of a neonatal incubator.
• French psychiatrist Bénédict Morel publishes Traité des dégénérescences physiques, intellectuelles et morales de l'espèce humaine et des causes qui produisent ces variétés maladives.

Technology

• March 23 – Elisha Otis' first elevator is installed.
• The first rails made from steel are made by Robert Forester Mushet early in the year and laid experimentally at Derby railway station on the Midland Railway in England. They prove far more durable than the iron rails they replace and remain in use until 1873.

Publications

• Naturalist P. H. Gosse's creationist text Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot is published in England.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Michel Eugène Chevreul
• Wollaston Medal for geology: Joachim Barrande

Births

• January 20 – Vladimir Bekhterev, Russian psychologist.
• February 3 – Wilhelm Johannsen, Danish plant physiologist and geneticist.
• February 22 – Heinrich Hertz, German physicist
• March 27 – Carl Pearson, English mathematician.
• April 30 – Eugen Bleuler, Swiss psychiatrist.
• May 13 – Ronald Ross, Indian-born British physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1902.
• May 15 – Williamina Fleming, Scottish-born American astronomer.
• June 28 – Robert Jones, Welsh orthopaedic surgeon.
• July 11 – Joseph Larmor, Irish physicist.
• August 8 – Henry Fairfield Osborn, American paleontologist.
• October 2 – John Macintyre, Scottish laryngologist and pioneer radiographer.
• November 1 – John Joly, Anglo-Irish physicist.
• November 27 – Charles Sherrington, English neurophysiologist and bacteriologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1932.
• November 29 – Theodor Escherich, German-born pediatric bacteriologist.

Deaths

• January 2 – Andrew Ure, Scottish industrial chemist and encyclopaedist.
• May 23 – Augustin-Louis Cauchy, French mathematician.
• June 21 – Louis Jacques Thénard, French chemist.
• July 13 – Karl Wilhelm Gottlob Kastner, German chemist.
• July 29 – Charles Lucien Bonaparte, French naturalist.
• August 12 – William Conybeare, English geologist.
• November 30 – Mary Buckland, English paleontologist and marine biologist.
• December 15 – George Cayley, English aviation pioneer.
• December 17 – Francis Beaufort, British hydrographer.date unknown – Elizabeth Philpot, English paleontologist.