Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

1887 in science

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The year 1887 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.

Contents

Astronomy

  • April – Carte du Ciel project initiated by Paris Observatory director Amédée Mouchez.
  • Theodor von Oppolzer's Canon der Finsternisse, a compilation of the 8,000 solar and 5,200 lunar eclipses from 1200 BC until 2161 AD, is published posthumously.

    • Biology

  • Jean Pierre Mégnin publishes Faune des Tombeaux ("Fauna of the Tombs"), the founding work of modern forensic entomology.
  • Sergei Winogradsky discovers the first known form of lithotrophy during his research with Beggiatoa.

    • Cartography

  • Guyou hemisphere-in-a-square projection developed by Émile Guyou.

    • Climate

  • January 28 – In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, in the United States, the largest snowflakes on record are reported. They are 15 inches (38 cm) wide and 8 inches (20 cm) thick.
  • September 28 – Start of the Yellow River floods in China: 900,000 dead.

    • Conservation

  • June 23 – The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada, creating that nation's first national park, Banff National Park.

    • Earth sciences

  • February 23 – The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000 along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
  • In Hawaii, the Mauna Loa volcano eruptions subside, having begun in 1843. During the 1887 eruption, about 2½ million tons (2.3 million metric tons) of lava per hour pours out, covering an area of 29 km².

    • Linguistics

  • March 3 – Anne Sullivan begins to teach language to the deaf and blind Helen Keller.
  • July 26 – L. L. Zamenhof publishes Lingvo internacia ("International language") under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto".

    • Mathematics

  • Joseph Louis François Bertrand rediscovers Bertrand's ballot theorem.
  • Henri Poincaré provides a solution to the three-body problem.

    • Medicine

  • January 11 – Louis Pasteur's anti-rabies treatment is defended in the French Academy of Medicine by Dr. Joseph Grancher.
  • August – The U.S. National Institutes of Health is founded at the Marine Hospital, Staten Island, NY, as the Laboratory of Hygiene.
  • October 1 – Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese founded by Patrick Manson.
  • Franz König publishes "Über freie Körper in den Gelenken" in the journal Deutsche Zeitschrift für Chirurgie, first describing (and naming) the disease Osteochondritis dissecans.
  • The Hospitals Association establishes the first (non-statutory and voluntary) register of nurses in the United Kingdom.

    • Physics

  • November – The Michelson-Morley experiment is performed, indicating that the speed of light is independent of motion.
  • Heinrich Hertz discovers the photoelectric effect on the production and reception of electromagnetic waves in radio, an important step towards the understanding of the quantum nature of light.

    • Psychology

  • November – G. Stanley Hall founds The American Journal of Psychology.
  • Richard Hodgson and S. J. Davey, in the course of investigations into popular belief in parapsychology, publish one of the first descriptions of eyewitness unreliability.

    • Technology

  • March 8 – Everett Horton of Connecticut patents a fishing rod of telescoping steel tubes.
  • March 13 – Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs.
  • June 8 – Herman Hollerith receives a U.S. patent for his punched card calculator.
  • July – James Blyth operates the first working wind turbine at Marykirk in Scotland.
  • July 19 – Dorr Eugene Felt receives the first U.S. patent for his comptometer.
  • August – Anna Connelly patents the fire escape.
  • November 8 – Emile Berliner is granted a U.S. patent for his Gramophone.
  • Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick invents the contact lens, made of a type of brown glass.
  • Mexican general Manuel Mondragón patents the Mondragón rifle, the world's first automatic rifle.
  • Alfred Yarrow completes the first practical high-pressure water-tube Yarrow boiler, for a torpedo boat.

    • Organizations

  • March 7 – North Carolina State University is established as North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.
  • October 3 – Florida A&M University opens its doors in Tallahassee, Florida.

    • Publications

  • Publication in Barcelona of Enrique Gaspar's El anacronópete, the first work of fiction to feature a time machine.

    • Awards

  • June – William Armstrong created 1st Baron Armstrong of Cragside, the first engineer to be raised to the Peerage of the United Kingdom
  • Copley Medal: Joseph Dalton Hooker
  • Wollaston Medal for Geology: John Whitaker Hulke

    • Births

  • January 15 – Henry Fairfield Osborn, Jr. (died 1969), American conservationist.
  • January 28 – Edmund Jaeger (died 1983), American naturalist
  • April 20 – Margaret Newton (died 1971), Canadian plant pathologist.
  • June 22 – Julian Huxley (died 1975), English biologist and populariser of science.
  • August 18 – Erwin Schrödinger (died 1961), Austrian physicist.
  • September 26 – Barnes Wallis (died 1979), English aeronautical engineer.
  • October 11 – María Teresa Ferrari (died 1956), Argentine physician.
  • November 19 – James B. Sumner (died 1955), American winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
  • November 23 – Henry Moseley (killed 1915), English physicist.
  • November 25 (November 13 Old Style) – Nikolai Vavilov (died 1943), Russian plant pathologist.
  • December 13 – George Pólya (died 1985), Hungarian mathematician.
  • December 22 – Srinivasa Ramanujan (died 1920), Indian mathematician.
  • December 27 – Edward Andrade (died 1971), English physicist.

    • Deaths

  • January 22 – Joseph Whitworth (born 1803), English mechanical engineer.
  • February 26 – Anandi Gopal Joshi (born 1865), Indian physician.
  • August 15 – Julius von Haast (born 1824), German geologist.
  • August 19
  • Spencer Fullerton Baird (born 1823), American ornithologist and ichthyologist.
  • Alvan Clark (born 1804), American telescope manufacturer.
  • October 7 (O.S. September 25) – Lev Tsenkovsky (born 1822), Russian biologist.
  • October 17 – Gustav Kirchhoff (born 1824), German physicist.
  • November 18 – Gustav Fechner (born 1801), German psychologist.

    • References

    1887 in science Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA


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