1828 IN SCIENCE

The year '1828 in science' and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Contents

Astronomy

Biology

Chemistry

Mathematics

Palaeontology

Physics

Awards

Births

Deaths

Astronomy

★ Félix Savary computes the first orbit of a visual double star when he calculates the orbit of the double star Xi Ursae Majoris.

Biology

★ Karl Ernst von Baer lays the foundations of the science of comparative embryology with his book ''Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere''

★ Friedrich Woehler synthesizes urea; first synthesis of an organic compound

Chemistry

★ Biochemistry: Urea becomes the first organic compound to be artificially synthesised, by Friedrich Wöhler, disproving a cornerstone of vitalism: The belief that life was not subject to the laws of science the way nonlife was.

★ Jöns Jakob Berzelius discovers thorium

Mathematics

★ George Green proves Green's theorem

Palaeontology

★ Adolphe Theodore Brongniart publishes ''Prodrome d'une histoire des Végétaux Fossils'', a study of fossil plants.

★ Mary Anning discovers Britain's first pterosaur fossil at Lyme Regis

Physics

★ William Rowan Hamilton publishes ''Theory of Systems of Rays''

Awards

★ Copley Medal: not awarded

Births

★ March 24 - Jules Verne (d. 1905), science fiction author.

★ October 31 - Joseph Swan (d. 1914), physicist.

Deaths

★ March 17 - James Edward Smith (b. 1759), English botanist.

★ August 8 - Carl Peter Thunberg (b. 1743), Swedish botanist.

★ December 22 - William Hyde Wollaston (b. 1766), chemist.