1838 in science

The year 1838 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel makes the first accurate measurement of distance to a star, 61 Cygni, using parallax. Thomas Henderson (Alpha Centauri) and Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve (Vega) announce their measurements using parallax shortly afterwards.
• Claude Servais Mathias Pouillet makes the first quantitative measurements of the heat emitted by the Sun.
• Peter Andreas Hansen publishes a revision of the lunar theory, Fundamenta nova investigationis orbitae verae quam luna perlustrat.

Biology

• May 9 – Royal Agricultural Society of England established.
• Proteins discovered by Gerardus Johannes Mulder^[1] and named by Jöns Jakob Berzelius.^[2]
• Matthias Schleiden discovers that all living plant tissue is composed of cells.
• Andrew Smith begins publication of Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa.

Chemistry

• Bulat steel alloy developed by Pavel Petrovich Anosov.
• Electrotyping is invented by Moritz von Jacobi in Russia.^[3]

Exploration

• August 18 – The United States Exploring Expedition under U.S. Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes sets sail for a four-year circumnavigation westabout.
• In Australia, Charles Sturt proves that the Hume and Murray are the same river.

Mathematics

• Augustus De Morgan introduces the term 'mathematical induction'.^[4]
• S. D. Poisson publishes Recherches sur la probabilité des jugements en matière criminelle et en matière civile, containing his work on probability theory and introducing Poisson distribution.

Medicine

• Jean Esquirol publishes Des maladies mentales considerées sous le rapport médicale, hygiènique et médico-legal in Paris. This includes the first description of what will later become known as Down syndrome.^[5]
• John Gorrie experiments with cooling the hospital wards of malarial patients in Apalachicola, Florida.^[6]

Technology

• January 6 – Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrates the electrical telegraph.
• April 4–22 – The paddle steamer SS Sirius (1837) makes the Transatlantic Crossing to New York from Cork, Ireland, in eighteen days, though not using steam continuously.^[7]
• April 8–23 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's paddle steamer SS Great Western (1838) makes the Transatlantic Crossing to New York from Avonmouth, England, in fifteen days, inaugurating a regular steamship service.^[8]
• Liverpool-built barque Ironsides becomes the first large ocean-going iron ship.^[9]
• William Barnett obtains a United Kingdom patent for an internal combustion engine, the first with compression of the gas/air mixture in the cylinder.^[10][11]
• David Bruce, Jr., invents the Pivotal Typecaster, which replaces hand typecasting in printing.
• The first screw-pile lighthouse is built by Alexander Mitchell on Maplin Sands in the Thames Estuary.
• Charles Wheatstone originates the stereoscope.

Events

• A statue of English chemist and physicist John Dalton (in marble by Sir Francis Chantrey) is erected in Manchester during the scientist's lifetime.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Carl Friedrich Gauss; Michael Faraday^[12]
• Wollaston Medal: Richard Owen

Births

• January 5 – Camille Jordan (died 1922), French mathematician.
• January 29 – Edward W. Morley (died 1923), American chemist.
• February 18 – Ernst Mach (died 1916), Austrian physicist.
• March 3 – George William Hill (died 1914), American astronomer.
• March 12 – William H. Perkin (died 1907), English chemist.
• March 15 – Alice Cunningham Fletcher (died 1923), Cuban-born American ethnologist, anthropologist and social scientist.
• April 8 – Ferdinand von Zeppelin (died 1917), German founder of the Zeppelin airship company.
• April 16 – Ernest Solvay (died 1922), Belgian chemist.
• April 18 – Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (died 1912), French chemist.
• April 21 – John Muir (died 1914), Scottish-born American naturalist.
• May 6 – Alexandra Smirnoff (died 1913), Finnish pomologist.
• June 4 – John Grigg (died 1920), New Zealand astronomer.
• July 19 – Joel Asaph Allen (died 1921), American zoologist.
• August 6 – George James Symons (died 1900), English meteorologist.
• December 12 – Sherburne Wesley Burnham (died 1921), American astronomer.

Deaths

• March 16 – Nathaniel Bowditch (born 1773), American mathematician.
• April 6 – José Bonifácio de Andrada (born 1763), Brazilian statesman and mineralogist.
• May 11 – Thomas Andrew Knight (born 1759), English horticulturalist.
• July 5 – Jean Marc Gaspard Itard (born 1774), French otorhinolaryngologist.
• August 21 – Adelbert von Chamisso (born 1781), German botanist.
• September 1 – William Clark (born 1770), American explorer.
• September 27 – Bernard Courtois (born 1777), French chemist.
• October 1 – Charles Tennant (born 1768), Scottish chemist and industrialist.

References