1888 in science

The year 1888 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Events

January 3 – The 91 cm refracting telescope at Lick Observatory is first used. The James Lick telescope is the largest refractor in the world at this time, and the observatory is the first established at the top of a mountain.
August 22 – Earliest evidence of a death and injury by a meteorite, in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq.
The 76 cm refracting telescope is completed at Nice Observatory.
John Louis Emil Dreyer's New General Catalogue is published.

Methyl isocyanate is discovered.
Henri-Louis Le Chatelier states that the response of a chemical system perturbed from equilibrium will be to counteract the perturbation.
Emil Fischer establishes the relation between glucose, fructose and mannose by passage to a common osazone.

January 27 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C. by Gardiner Greene Hubbard.

July 15 – 1888 eruption of Mount Bandai: An explosive eruption of the stratovolcano Mount Bandai in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan results in pyroclastic flows and the deaths of at least 477 people. Japanese geologists Seikei Sekiya and Y. Kikuchi from the Imperial University of Tokyo visit Bandai within days of the eruption and, after spending several months studying the new crater and the devastated areas, publish a report in English which is considered a classic in volcanology.

The American Mathematical Society is founded by Thomas Fiske.
Hilbert's basis theorem is first proved by David Hilbert.
Francis Galton introduces the concept of correlation in statistics.
Richard Dedekind publishes Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen? which includes his definition of an infinite set.
Sofia Kovalevskaya discovers the 'Kovalevskaya top'.

The global atmospheric temperature returns to normal, five years after the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The volcanic dust veil, that has created spectacular atmospheric effects, also acted as a solar-radiation filter, lowering global temperatures by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius in the year after the eruption.

Carlo Martinotti describes cortical cells later known as Martinotti cells.
Emile Roux and Alexandre Yersin isolate diphtheria toxin.
Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz names the chromosome.
German ophthalmologist Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick constructs and fits the first successful glass contact lens.

January 3 – Marvin Stone is granted a United States patent for the paper drinking straw.
April – American engineer Oliver B. Shallenberger invents a practical AC induction electricity meter.
May 1 – Nikola Tesla is granted a US patent for the induction motor.
May 15 – Emile Berliner is granted a US patent for the gramophone record.
August 10 – Gottlieb Daimler flies in an airship designed by Dr. Frederich Wölfert powered by a Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft-built petrol engine.
September 4 – George Eastman is granted a US patent for his roll film camera, for which he registers the trademark Kodak.
October 3 – The first patent for a ballpoint pen is granted to John Loud, a British tanner who wishes to produce a writing instrument that can write on leather.
October 14 – Louis Le Prince shoots the first recorded film, Roundhay Garden Scene, in Leeds, England, using a single lens camera and Eastman paper film.
December 7 – John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic bicycle tyre.