1686 in science

none 1686 science 1686 The year 1686 in science and technology involved some significant events. Astronomy Gottfried Kirch notices that Chi Cygni's brightness varies. Biology John Ray begins publication of his Historia Plantarum, including the first biological definition of the term species;Mayr Ernst 1982 The Growth of Biological Thought: diversity, evolution, and inheritance Cambridge, Massachusetts Belknap Press 0-674-36445-7 256 registration https://archive.org/details/growthofbiologic00mayr/page/256 also his edition of Francis Willughby's Historia Piscum.Frank N. Egerton A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 18: John Ray and His Associates Francis Willughby and William Derham http://www.esapubs.org/bulletin/current/history_list/history18.pdf Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 86 4 October 2005 301–313 2011-04-26 10.1890/0012-9623(2005)86[301:ahotes]2.0.co;2 Geology Edmund Halley establishes the relationship between barometric pressure and height above sea level. Meteorology Edmund Halley presents a systematic study of the trade winds and monsoons and identifies solar heating as the cause of atmospheric motions.E. Halley An Historical Account of the Trade Winds, and Monsoons, observable in the Seas between and near the Tropicks, with an attempt to assign the Physical cause of the said Winds Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London 1686 16 153–168 10.1098/rstl.1686.0026 Physics Isaac Newton uses a fixed length pendulum with weights of varying composition to test the weak equivalence principle to 1 part in 1000. Births February 10 – Jan Frederik Gronovius, Dutch botanist (died 1762) May 24 – Gabriel Fahrenheit, physicist and inventor (died 1736) July 6 – Antoine de Jussieu, French naturalist (died 1758) October (possible date) – John Machin, English mathematician (died 1751)Anita McConnell Machin, John (bap. 1686?, died 1751) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17533?docPos=2 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press 2004 2007-06-26 10.1093/ref:odnb/17533 Deaths May 11 – Otto von Guericke, German physicist (born 1602) November 25 (NS December 5) – Nicolas Steno, Danish pioneer geologist and bishop (born 1638) References Category:17th century in science Category:1680s in science