1868 in science

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The year 1868 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology[edit]

January 30 – Publication of Charles Darwin's The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (by John Murray in London), including his theory of heredity, which he calls pangenesis.
Jules-Emile Planchon and colleagues propose Phylloxera as the cause of the Great French Wine Blight.^[1]
Roland Trimen reads a paper to the Linnaean Society explaining Batesian mimicry in African butterflies.^[2]^[3]
T. H. Huxley discovers what he thinks is primordial matter and names it Bathybius haeckelii. He admits his mistake in 1871.^[4]
The Granny Smith apple cultivar originates in Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia, from a chance seedling propagated by Maria Ann Smith (née Sherwood, 1799–1870).^[5]

Chemistry[edit]

August 18 – The element later named as helium is first detected in the spectrum of the Sun's chromosphere by French astronomer Jules Janssen during a total eclipse in Guntur, India, but assumed to be sodium.^[6]
October 20 – English astronomer Norman Lockyer observes and names the D₃ Fraunhofer line in the solar spectrum and concludes that it is caused by a hitherto unidentified element which he later names helium.^[7]
Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron patents methods of color photography.^[8]

Medicine[edit]

Jean-Martin Charcot describes and names multiple sclerosis.^[9]^[10]
Adolph Kussmaul performs the first esophagogastroduodenoscopy on a living human.^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]

Paleontology[edit]

March – French geologist Louis Lartet discovers the first identified skeletons of Cro-Magnon, the first anatomically modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens), at Abri de Crô-Magnon, a rock shelter at Les Eyzies, Dordogne, France.

Technology[edit]

June 23 – The Sholes and Glidden typewriter is patented in the United States.^[15]
October 28 – American inventor Thomas Edison applies for his first patent, for a form of electronic voting machine.
Ernest and Auguste Bollée first patent the Éolienne Bollée wind turbine in France.^[16]
Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell's paper on governors^[17] is a landmark in the mathematics of feedback and in control theory.
Pendulum-and-hydrostat control for the Whitehead torpedo developed by Robert Whitehead.

Awards[edit]

Copley Medal: Charles Wheatstone^[18]
Wollaston Medal for Geology: Carl Friedrich Naumann

Births[edit]

January 9 – S. P. L. Sørensen (died 1939), Danish chemist.
January 31 – Theodore William Richards (died 1928), American chemist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
February 7 – Aleen Cust (died 1937), Anglo-Irish veterinary surgeon.
March 15 – Grace Chisholm Young (died 1944), English mathematician.
March 22 – Robert Andrews Millikan (died 1953), American physicist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physics.^[19]
April 4
- Philippa Fawcett (died 1948), English mathematician.
- Henrietta Swan Leavitt (died 1921), American astronomer^[20]
April 5 – Percy Furnivall (died 1938), English surgeon.
April 8 – Herbert Spencer Jennings (died 1947), American zoologist.
April 14 – Annie S. D. Maunder, née Russell (died 1947), Irish astronomer.
April 28 – Georgy Voronoy (died 1908), Ukrainian mathematician.
April 30 – J. B. Christopherson (died 1955), English physician.
May 2 – Robert W. Wood (died 1955), American optical physicist.
June 6 – Robert Falcon Scott (died 1912), English explorer.
June 7 – John Sealy Townsend (died 1957), Irish mathematical physicist.^[21]
June 14 – Karl Landsteiner (died 1943), Austrian physiologist.
July 4 – Henrietta Swan Leavitt (died 1921), American astronomer.^[22]
October 23 – Frederick W. Lanchester (died 1946), English automotive engineer.
November 8 – Felix Hausdorff (died 1942), German mathematician.
November 14 – Karl Landsteiner (died 1943), Austrian-born physiologist, recipient of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.^[23]
November 15 – Emil Racoviță (died 1947), Romanian biologist, speleologist and explorer.
November 17 – Korbinian Brodmann (died 1918), German neurologist.
December 5 – Arnold Sommerfeld (died 1951), German theoretical physicist.^[24]
December 9 – Fritz Haber (died 1934), German chemist.^[25]

Deaths[edit]

February 10 – Sir David Brewster, Scottish physicist (born 1781)^[26]
February 11 – Léon Foucault (born 1819), French physicist.^[27]
February 24 – John Herapath (born 1790), English physicist.
May 22 – Julius Plücker (born 1801), German mathematician and physicist.
June 25 – Alexander Mitchell (born 1780), Irish engineer and inventor of the screw-pile lighthouse.
June 29 – Sir John Lillie, British army officer, entrepreneur and inventor (born 1790)
July 15 – William T. G. Morton (born 1819), American dentist.
August 29 – Christian Friedrich Schönbein, German chemist and inventor of the fuel cell (born 1799)^[28]
September 26 – August Ferdinand Möbius (born 1790), German mathematician and astronomer^[29]
December 25 – Linus Yale, Jr. (born 1821), American engineer and inventor.^[30]
December 31 – James David Forbes (born 1809), Scottish-born physicist, glaciologist and seismologist.

References[edit]

^ "The Great French Wine Blight". Wine Tidings. 96. July–August 1986. Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-01.
^ Published in Transactions 26(3) (1870): 497.
^ "Roland Trimen, 1840-1916". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 91 (641): xviii–xxvii. 1920. doi:10.1098/rspb.1920.0020. JSTOR 80995.
^ Ley, Willy (1959). Exotic Zoology. New York: Viking Press.
^ Martin, Megan (2005). "Smith, Maria Ann (1799–1870)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 2012-01-27.
^ Kochhar, R. K. (1991). "French astronomers in India during the 17th –19th centuries". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 101 (2): 95–100. Bibcode:1991JBAA..101...95K.
^ Hampel, Clifford A. (1968). The Encyclopedia of the Chemical Elements. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. pp. 256–268. ISBN 0-442-15598-0.
^ Coe, Brian (1978). Colour Photography: the first hundred years 1840-1940. London: Ash & Grant. ISBN 0-904069-24-9.
^ Enerson, Ole Daniel. "Jean-Martin Charcot". Whonamedit?. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-11.
^ Charcot, J.-M. (1868). "Histologie de la sclerose en plaques". Gazette des Hopitaux. 41. Paris: 554–55.
^ Killian, Gustvan (1911). "The history of bronchoscopy and esophagoscopy". The Laryngoscope. 21 (9): 891–7. doi:10.1288/00005537-191109000-00001. S2CID 73388145.
^ Modlin, Irvin M.; Kidd, Mark; Lye, Kevin D. (2004). "From the Lumen to the Laparoscope". Archives of Surgery. 139 (10): 1110–26. doi:10.1001/archsurg.139.10.1110. PMID 15492154. Retrieved 2011-10-17.
^ Elewaut, A.; Cremer, M. (2002). "The History of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy — The European Perspective". In Classen, Meinhard; Tytgat, Guido N.J.; Lightdale, Charles J. (eds.). Gastroenterological endoscopy. Stuttgart: Thieme. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-58890-013-5. Retrieved 2010-09-06.
^ Vilardell, F. (2006). "Rigid gastroscopes". Digestive endoscopy in the second millennium: from the Lichtleiter to echoendoscopy. Stuttgart: Thieme. pp. 32–5. ISBN 978-3-13-139671-6. Retrieved 2010-09-06.
^ US79265.
^ No 79985.
^ Maxwell, James Clerk (1868). "On Governors". Proceedings of the Royal Society. 16 (100). London: 270–283. doi:10.1098/rspl.1867.0055. JSTOR 112510.
^ "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
^ "Robert A. Millikan - Biographical". www.nobelprize.org.
^ Lamb, Gregory M. (July 5, 2005). "Before computers, there were these humans..." Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved January 1, 2020.
^ Von Engel, A. (1957). "John Sealy Edward Townsend. 1868-1957". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 3: 256–272. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1957.0018.
^ Todd, Deborah; Angelo, Joseph (2003). A to Z of Scientists in Space and Astronomy. New York: Facts of File. p. 200. ISBN 978-0-81604-639-3.
^ Rous, P. (1947). "Karl Landsteiner. 1868–1943". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 5 (15): 294–324. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1947.0002. JSTOR 769085. S2CID 161789667.
^ Born, Max, Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, 1868–1951, Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society Volume 8, Number 21, pp. 274–296 (1952)
^ Goran, Morris (1967). The Story of Fritz Haber. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-8061-0756-1. Retrieved 30 April 2021.
^ Gordon, Margaret Maria (1881). The home life of sir David Brewster. D. Douglas. pp. 231–236. Retrieved 18 September 2011.
^ John Guy Porter; Patrick Moore (1967). Yearbook of Astronomy. W. W. Norton. p. 47.
^ Partington, J. R. (1964). History of Chemistry. London: Macmillan Education, Limited. p. 190. ISBN 9781349005543.
^ Franceschetti, Donald (1999). Biographical encyclopedia of mathematicians. New York: Marshall Cavendish. p. 377. ISBN 9780761470717.
^ Day, Lance (1996). Biographical dictionary of the history of technology. London New York: Routledge. p. 1345. ISBN 9781134650194.

[1] "The Great French Wine Blight". Wine Tidings. 96. July–August 1986. Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 2011-08-01.

[2] Published in Transactions 26(3) (1870): 497.

[3] "Roland Trimen, 1840-1916". Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 91 (641): xviii–xxvii. 1920. doi:10.1098/rspb.1920.0020. JSTOR 80995.

[4] Ley, Willy (1959). Exotic Zoology. New York: Viking Press.

[5] Martin, Megan (2005). "Smith, Maria Ann (1799–1870)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Retrieved 2012-01-27.

[6] Kochhar, R. K. (1991). "French astronomers in India during the 17th –19th centuries". Journal of the British Astronomical Association. 101 (2): 95–100. Bibcode:1991JBAA..101...95K.

[7] Hampel, Clifford A. (1968). The Encyclopedia of the Chemical Elements. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. pp. 256–268. ISBN 0-442-15598-0.

[8] Coe, Brian (1978). Colour Photography: the first hundred years 1840-1940. London: Ash & Grant. ISBN 0-904069-24-9.

[9] Enerson, Ole Daniel. "Jean-Martin Charcot". Whonamedit?. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 2011-04-11.

[10] Charcot, J.-M. (1868). "Histologie de la sclerose en plaques". Gazette des Hopitaux. 41. Paris: 554–55.

[11] Killian, Gustvan (1911). "The history of bronchoscopy and esophagoscopy". The Laryngoscope. 21 (9): 891–7. doi:10.1288/00005537-191109000-00001. S2CID 73388145.

[12] Modlin, Irvin M.; Kidd, Mark; Lye, Kevin D. (2004). "From the Lumen to the Laparoscope". Archives of Surgery. 139 (10): 1110–26. doi:10.1001/archsurg.139.10.1110. PMID 15492154. Retrieved 2011-10-17.

[13] Elewaut, A.; Cremer, M. (2002). "The History of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy — The European Perspective". In Classen, Meinhard; Tytgat, Guido N.J.; Lightdale, Charles J. (eds.). Gastroenterological endoscopy. Stuttgart: Thieme. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-58890-013-5. Retrieved 2010-09-06.

[14] Vilardell, F. (2006). "Rigid gastroscopes". Digestive endoscopy in the second millennium: from the Lichtleiter to echoendoscopy. Stuttgart: Thieme. pp. 32–5. ISBN 978-3-13-139671-6. Retrieved 2010-09-06.

[15] US79265.

[16] No 79985.

[17] Maxwell, James Clerk (1868). "On Governors". Proceedings of the Royal Society. 16 (100). London: 270–283. doi:10.1098/rspl.1867.0055. JSTOR 112510.

[18] "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2020.

[19] "Robert A. Millikan - Biographical". www.nobelprize.org.

[20] Lamb, Gregory M. (July 5, 2005). "Before computers, there were these humans..." Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved January 1, 2020.

[21] Von Engel, A. (1957). "John Sealy Edward Townsend. 1868-1957". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 3: 256–272. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1957.0018.

[22] Todd, Deborah; Angelo, Joseph (2003). A to Z of Scientists in Space and Astronomy. New York: Facts of File. p. 200. ISBN 978-0-81604-639-3.

[23] Rous, P. (1947). "Karl Landsteiner. 1868–1943". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 5 (15): 294–324. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1947.0002. JSTOR 769085. S2CID 161789667.

[24] Born, Max, Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, 1868–1951, Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society Volume 8, Number 21, pp. 274–296 (1952)

[25] Goran, Morris (1967). The Story of Fritz Haber. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-8061-0756-1. Retrieved 30 April 2021.

[26] Gordon, Margaret Maria (1881). The home life of sir David Brewster. D. Douglas. pp. 231–236. Retrieved 18 September 2011.

[27] John Guy Porter; Patrick Moore (1967). Yearbook of Astronomy. W. W. Norton. p. 47.

[28] Partington, J. R. (1964). History of Chemistry. London: Macmillan Education, Limited. p. 190. ISBN 9781349005543.

[29] Franceschetti, Donald (1999). Biographical encyclopedia of mathematicians. New York: Marshall Cavendish. p. 377. ISBN 9780761470717.

[30] Day, Lance (1996). Biographical dictionary of the history of technology. London New York: Routledge. p. 1345. ISBN 9781134650194.

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