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 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)