1873 in science

none 1873 science 1873 The year 1873 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below. Chemistry Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff and Joseph Achille Le Bel, working independently, develop a model of chemical bonding that explains the chirality experiments of Pasteur and provides a physical cause for optical activity in chiral compoundsJacobus Henricus van't Hoff https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/jacobus-henricus-van%E2%80%99t-hoff Science History Institute 21 March 2018 June 2016 22 March 2018 https://web.archive.org/web/20180322081621/https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/jacobus-henricus-van%E2%80%99t-hoff deadBowden Mary Ellen Chemical achievers : the human face of the chemical sciences https://archive.org/details/chemicalachiever0000bowd registration 1997 Chemical Heritage Foundation Philadelphia, PA 9780941901123 Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff 94–95 Exploration The Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition discovers Franz-Josef Land Mathematics Charles Hermite proves that the mathematical constant e is a transcendental numberTony Crilly 50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know London Quercus 2007 978-1-84724-008-8 Henri Brocard introduces the Brocard points, Brocard triangle and Brocard circle"Etudes d'un nouveau cercle du plan du triangle". Paper to l'Association française pour l'avancement des sciences.Laura Guggenbuhl Laura Guggenbühl Henri Brocard and the Geometry of the Triangle The Mathematical Gazette London Mathematical Association 37 322 241–243 3610034 December 1953 10.1017/S0025557200027558 Meteorology September 15 – agreement for establishment of the International Meteorological Organization.May 2025 Physics February 20 – English electrical engineer Willoughby Smith publishes his discovery of the photoconductivity of the element selenium10.1038/007303e0 Effect of Light on Selenium During the Passage of an Electric Current 1873 Nature 7 173 303 1873Natur...7R.303. free June 14 – Johannes Diderik van der Waals defends his thesis, Over de Continuiteit van den Gas en Vloeistoftoestand (On the continuity of the gaseous and liquid state) at Leiden University; in this, he introduces the concepts of molecular volume and molecular attraction; gives a semi-quantitative description of the phenomena of condensation and critical temperatures; and derives the van der Waals equationJames Clerk Maxwell Clerk-Maxwell J. 1874 Van der Waals on the Continuity of the Gaseous and Liquid States Nature 10 477–480 10.1038/010477a0 1874Natur..10..477C 259 https://zenodo.org/record/1429215/files/article.pdf September 22 – James Clerk Maxwell delivers a discourse on molecules to the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in BradfordJ. Clerk-Maxwell Molecules Nature 10.1038/008437a0 8 204 25 September 1873 437–41 1873Natur...8..437. free Also digitised at The Victorian Web. Archived 2012-02-23. December – J. Willard Gibbs describes the principle of Gibbs free energyJ. W. Gibbs A Method of Geometrical Representation of the Thermodynamic Properties of Substances by Means of Surfaces Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 2 1873 382–404 James Clerk Maxwell's A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism first presents the partial differential equations known as Maxwell's equations which form the foundation of classical electrodynamics, optics and electric circuits Frederick Guthrie is the first to report observing thermionic emissionhttps://books.google.com/books?id=PrbOIoMnxnwC&pg=PA196 The emission of positive ions by hot metals Owen Richardson 1921 2009-07-11 978-1-929148-10-3 Physiology and medicine June 18 – Alice Vickery passes the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's examination, becoming the first qualified female pharmacist in the United Kingdomhttp://www.rpharms.com/women-pharmacists-before-the-20th-century/alice-vickery.asp Alice Vickery Royal Pharmaceutical Society www.rpharms.com 2013-07-25 2016-03-07 https://web.archive.org/web/20160307083353/http://rpharms.com/women-pharmacists-before-the-20th-century/alice-vickery.asp dead Mycobacterium leprae, the causative agent of leprosy, is discovered by Norwegian physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen. It is the first bacterium to be identified as pathogenic in humansHansen G. H. A. Undersøgelser Angående Spedalskhedens Årsager Investigations concerning the etiology of leprosy Norsk Mag. Laegervidenskaben 1874 4 1–88 NorwegianIrgens L. The discovery of the leprosy bacillus Tidsskr. Nor. Laegeforen. 122 7 708–9 2002 11998735 English allergist Charles Harrison Blackley publishes Experimental Researches on the Causes and Nature of Catarrhus aestivus Camillo Golgi first publishes a demonstration of Golgi's methodOrigins of Neuroscience: a history of explorations into brain function Finger Stanley Oxford University Press 1994 9780195146943 45 27151391 In 1873, Golgi published the first brief but "adequate" picture of la reazione nera (the black reaction), which showed the whole nerve cell, including its cell body, axon, and branching dendrites. Technology May 20 – Jacob W. Davis and Levi Strauss receive United States patent 139121 for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of denim jeans Carl von Linde installs his first commercial refrigeration system, built by Maschinenfabrik Augsburg for the Spaten Brewery and using dimethyl ether as the refrigerant Christopher Miner Spencer introduces the fully automatic turret latheL. T. C. Rolt L. T. C. Rolt A Short History of Machine Tools MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts 1965 169 Awards Copley Medal: Hermann HelmholtzCopley Medal British scientific award https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal Encyclopedia Britannica 23 July 2020 en Wollaston Medal for geology: Philip de Malpas Grey Egerton Births February 11 – Louis Charles Christopher Krieger (died 1940), American mycologist February 12 – Barnum Brown (died 1963), American paleontologist March 5 – Thomas Harrison Montgomery, Jr. (died 1912), American zoologist and cell biologist April 25 – Félix d'Herelle (died 1949), French-Canadian microbiologist, a co-discoverer of bacteriophages June 28 – Alexis Carrel (died 1942), French surgeon, biologist and winner of a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine June 30 – Friedrich Karl Georg Fedde (died 1942), German botanist July 7 – Sándor Ferenczi (died 1933), Hungarian psychoanalyst October 4 – Dimitrie Pompeiu (died 1954), Romanian mathematician October 9 – Karl Schwarzschild (died 1916), German astronomer and physicist Deaths January 27 – Adam Sedgwick (born 1785), English geologist February 1 – Matthew Fontaine Maury (born 1806), American oceanographer April 18 – Justus von Liebig (born 1803), German chemist March 10 – John Torrey (born 1796), American botanist March 30 – Bénédict Morel (born 1809), French psychiatrist September 15 – Alexei Pavlovich Fedchenko (born 1844), Russian naturalist September 24 – John Thurnam (born 1810), English psychiatrist and ethnologist October 17 – Robert McClure (born 1807), British Arctic explorer December 14 – Louis Agassiz (born 1807), Swiss-American zoologist and geologist References Category:19th century in science Category:1870s in science