1679 in science

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The year 1679 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Botany

• Establishment of Hortus Botanicus (Amsterdam).

Mathematics

• Samuel Morland publishes The Doctrine of Interest, both Simple & Compound, probably the first tables produced with the aid of a calculating machine.^[1]

Medicine

• Great Plague of Vienna.
• Franciscus Sylvius' Opera Medica, published posthumously, recognizes scrofula and phthisis as forms of tuberculosis.

Technology

• Pierre-Paul Riquet excavates Malpas Tunnel on the Canal du Midi in Hérault, France, Europe's first navigable canal tunnel (165 m, concrete lined).^[2]

Zoology

Maria Sibylla Merian in 1679

• Maria Sibylla Merian publishes the first part of Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumennahrung ("The Caterpillars' Marvellous Transformation and Strange Floral Food"), comprising detailed illustrated descriptions of insect metamorphosis.^[3]

Publications

• Publication in Paris of the first of Edme Mariotte's Essays de physique: De la végétation des plantes, a pioneering discussion of plant physiology; and De la nature de l'air, a statement of Boyle's law.
• Publication by the Paris Observatory of the world's first national ephemeris almanac, the Connaissance des tems, compiled by Jean Picard.

Births

• January 2 – Pierre Fauchard, French physician (died 1761).^[4]
• January 24 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher, mathematician and scientist (died 1754)

Deaths

• January 14 – Jacques de Billy, French Jesuit mathematician (born 1602)

References

1. Dickinson, H. W. (1970). Sir Samuel Morland: diplomat and inventor 1625-1695. Cambridge: Heffer for the Newcomen Society. ISBN 0-85270-061-X.
2. Roland, Claudine (1997). The Canal du Midi. MSM. ISBN 2-909998-66-5.
3. Etheridge, Kay (2020). The Flowering of Ecology: Maria Sibylla Merian's Caterpillar Book. Brill.
4. Jean-François Vincent. "Fauchard, Pierre". www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr (in French). Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de Santé, Université de Paris (Base biographique). Retrieved 2021-02-08.