1870 in science

Overview of the events of 1870 in science

List of years in science

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1870 in science

1869

1871

Fields

* Archaeology

Technology

* Sustainable energy research
* Transportation technology

Social sciences

* Psychology
* Governance and policy studies

Paleontology

* Dinosaurs' extinction

Extraterrestrial environment
Terrestrial environment

* Tornado research

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The year 1870 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

## Biology

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* January 18 – Gerhardt Krefft first describes the Queensland lungfish, in The Sydney Morning Herald.
* Charles Valentine Riley confirms Phylloxera as the cause of the Great French Wine Blight.[1]
* Heinrich Wilhelm Gottfried von Waldeyer-Hartz postulates that the number of ova in the female is fixed.

## Chemistry

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* Norman Lockyer and Edward Frankland propose that the gas detected in solar observations should be called 'helium'.[2][3]

## Mathematics

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* Felix Klein constructs a model for hyperbolic geometry establishing its self-consistency and the logical independence of Euclid's fifth postulate. (Note: Eugenio Beltrami had previously given such a model in 1868.)
* W. Stanley Jevons publishes the popular textbook Elementary Lessons on Logic.[4]

## Medicine

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* Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch establish the germ theory of disease.
* Henry Maudsley publishes his lectures on Body and Mind: an Inquiry into their Connection and Mutual Influence.
* Frances Morgan becomes the first British woman to receive a Doctor of Medicine degree from a European university, the University of Zurich.

## Meteorology

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* November 1 – In the United States, the newly created Weather Bureau (later renamed the National Weather Service) makes its first official meteorological forecast: "High winds at Chicago and Milwaukee... and along the Lakes".

## Paleontology

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* Eustreptospondylus oxoniensis juvenile dinosaur fossil found in Summertown, Oxford.[5]

## Physics

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* Rudolf Clausius proves the scalar virial theorem.

## Psychology

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* Ludimar Hermann observes the Hermann grid illusion.[6]

## Technology

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* February 26 – The Beach Pneumatic Transit subway in New York City is opened.
* March 8 – Joy valve gear for steam locomotives is patented in the United Kingdom by David Joy.
* August 2 – Official opening of the Tower Subway beneath the River Thames in London, first use of the cylindrical wrought iron tunnelling shield devised by Peter W. Barlow and James Henry Greathead[7] and of a permanent tunnel lining of cast iron segments.[8]
* Svend Foyn receives a Norwegian patent for the grenade harpoon cannon for whaling.
* Henry R. Heyl receives a United States patent for a magic lantern movie projector.
* A practical stock ticker is introduced by Thomas Edison.
* First known use of weapons for anti-aircraft warfare, at Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.

## Institutions

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* Ellen Swallow Richards becomes the first woman admitted to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
* December 20 – Missouri University of Science and Technology established as the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy.

## Awards

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* Copley Medal: James Prescott Joule[9]
* Wollaston Medal for geology: Gerard Paul Deshayes

## Births

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* January 9 – Joseph Strauss (died 1938), American bridge engineer.
* January 13 – Ross Granville Harrison (died 1959), American physiologist.
* February 7 – Alfred Adler (died 1937), Austrian psychotherapist.
* March 17 – Horace Donisthorpe (died 1951), English entomologist.
* May 20 – Arthur Korn (died 1945), German inventor.
* May 27 – Anna Stecksén (died 1904), Swedish scientist, physician and pathologist.
* June 21 – Clara Immerwahr (suicide 1915), German chemist.
* August 25 – Mihran Kassabian (died 1910), American radiologist.
* October 23 – George Newman (died 1948), English public health physician.

## Deaths

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* January 25 – Janet Taylor (born 1804), English mathematician and navigational instrument maker.
* March 9 – 'Granny' Maria Ann Smith (born 1799), English-born Australian horticulturalist.
* March 12 – Charles Xavier Thomas (born 1785), French inventor of the first mass-produced calculator.
* July 12 – Alexander Henry Haliday (born 1806), Anglo Irish entomologist.
* November 14 – Karl Weltzien (born 1813), German inorganic chemist.
* December 27 (O.S. December 15) – Nikolai N. Kaufman (born 1834), Russian botanist.

## References

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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. ^ Thomson, W. (1872) Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science 99.
3. ^ "Discovery of Helium". Sir Joseph Norman Lockyer. Archived from the original on 2011-02-26. Retrieved 2011-03-30.
4. ^ Grattan-Guinness, Ivor (2000). The Search for Mathematical Roots, 1870–1940. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-05858-0.
5. ^ Phillips, John (1871). Geology of Oxford and the Valley of the Thames. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Display in Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
6. ^ Hermann, L. (1870). "Eine Erscheinung simultanen Contrastes". Pflügers Archiv für die gesamte Physiologie. 3: 13–15\. doi:10.1007/BF01855743.
7. ^ Smith, Denis (2001). Civil Engineering Heritage: London and the Thames Valley. Thomas Telford. pp. 22–23\. ISBN 0-7277-2876-8.
8. ^ West, Graham (2005). Innovation and the Rise of the Tunnelling Industry. Cambridge University Press. pp. 116–118\. ISBN 0-521-33512-4.
9. ^ "Copley Medal | British scientific award". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 23 July 2020.

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