1737 in science

The year 1737 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• May 28 – The planet Venus passes in front of Mercury. The event is witnessed during the evening by amateur astronomer John Bevis at the Royal Greenwich Observatory in England.

Botany

• February 27 – French scientists Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon publish the first study correlating past weather conditions with an examination of tree rings.
• Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal, with her own colour illustrations, is published in London.
• Johannes Burman's Thesaurus zeylanicus, a flora of Ceylon, is published in Amsterdam.

Geology

• Francesco Serao is the first person to use the word lava in connection with extruded magma in a short account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which took place between May 14 and June 4.
• October 11 – An earthquake in Calcutta, India is said to have caused 300,000 deaths; this is now in question: it was probably a cyclone, with deaths estimated at 3,000.
• October 16 – An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 9.3 strikes offshore of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Mathematics

• Divergence of the sum of the reciprocals of the primes proved by Leonhard Euler.

Technology

• John Harrison is given an award from the longitude prize to continue his work on development of a stable marine chronometer in England.

Publications

• Venetian polymath Francesco Algarotti publishes Newtonianism for Ladies, or Dialogues on Light and Colours (Neutonianismo per le dame).

Awards

• Copley Medal: John Belchier

Births

• January 4 – Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, French chemist and politician (died 1816)
• August 14 – Charles Hutton, English mathematician (died 1823)
• September 9 – Luigi Galvani, Italian physicist (died 1798)