1843 in science
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The year 1843 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Astronomy
- March 11–14 – Eta Carinae flares to become the second brightest star.
- February 5–April 19 – "Great March Comet" observed.
- December 21 – The first total solar eclipse of Saros 139 occurs over southern Asia.
- Heinrich Schwabe reports a periodic change in the number of sunspots: they wax and wane in number according to a ten-year cycle.
Chemistry
- Jean-Baptiste Dumas names lactose.<ref>Dumas (1843). Traité de Chimie, Appliquée aux Arts. 6 Paris: Bechet Jeune. p. 293.</ref>
- Carl Mosander discovers the chemical elements Terbium and Erbium.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- John J. Waterston produces an account of the kinetic theory of gases.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- Alfred Bird produces single-acting baking powder.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Mathematics
- September – Ada Lovelace translates and expands Menabrea’s notes on Charles Babbage's analytical engine, including an algorithm for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, regarded as the world's first computer program.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
- October 16 – William Rowan Hamilton discovers the calculus of quaternions and deduces that they are non-commutative.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Arthur Cayley and James Joseph Sylvester found the algebraic invariant theory.
- John T. Graves discovers the octonions.
- Pierre-Alphonse Laurent discovers and presents the Laurent expansion theorem.
Physics
- James Prescott Joule experimentally finds the mechanical equivalent of heat.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
- Ohm's acoustic law is proposed by German physicist Georg Ohm.
Physiology and medicine
- April–May – English surgeon Benjamin Brodie extracts a coin lodged in the bronchus of engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel using novel methods.<ref>Brodie, Benjamin. "An account of a case in which a foreign body was lodged in the right bronchus." Paper to Royal Medical & Chirurgical Society 27 June 1843.</ref>
- British surgeon James Braid publishes Neurypnology: or the Rationale of Nervous Sleep, a key text in the history of hypnotism.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., argues that puerperal fever is spread by lack of hygiene in physicians.<ref>"The Contagiousness of puerperal fever". New England Quarterly Journal of Medicine and Surgery.</ref>
Technology
- March 25 – Completion of the Thames Tunnel, the first bored underwater tunnel in the world (engineer: Marc Isambard Brunel).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- July 19 – Launch of Template:SS, the first iron-hulled, propeller-driven ship to cross the Atlantic Ocean (designer: Isambard Kingdom Brunel).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
- November 21 – Thomas Hancock patents the vulcanisation of rubber using sulphur in the United Kingdom
- The steam powered rotary printing press is invented by Richard March Hoe in the United States.<ref>Template:Cite book It receives Template:US Patent in 1847 and is placed in commercial use the same year.</ref>
- Robert Stirling and his brother James convert a steam engine at a Dundee factory to operate as a Stirling engine.
- The first public telegraph line in the United Kingdom is laid between Paddington and Slough.
- Approximate date – Euphonium invented.
Publications
- October – Anna Atkins begins publication of Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, a collection of contact printed cyanotype photograms of algae which forms the first book illustrated with photographic images.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Awards
- Copley Medal: Jean-Baptiste Dumas<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Wollaston Medal for Geology: Jean-Baptiste Elie de Beaumont; Pierre Armand Dufrenoy
Births
- January 13 – David Ferrier (died 1928), Scottish neurologist.<ref>Template:Cite ODNB</ref>
- May 6 – G. K. Gilbert (died 1918), American geologist.
- June 12 – David Gill (died 1914), Scottish astronomer.
- June 23 – Paul Heinrich von Groth (died 1927), German mineralogist.
- July 24 – William de Wiveleslie Abney (died 1920), English astronomer.
- August 17 – Alexandre Lacassagne (died 1924), French forensic scientist.
- November 30 – Martha Ripley (died 1912), American physician.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- December 11 – Robert Koch (died 1910), German physician, famous for the discovery of the tubercle bacillus (1882) and the cholera bacillus (1883) and for his development of Koch's postulates; awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1905
- Adelaida Lukanina (died 1908), Russian chemist.
Deaths
- July 25 – Charles Macintosh (born 1766), Scottish inventor of a waterproof fabric.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
- August 10 – Robert Adrain (born 1775), Irish American mathematician.
- September 11 – Joseph Nicollet (born 1786), French geographer, explorer, mathematician and astronomer.
- September 19 – Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis (born 1792), French mathematician and discoverer of the Coriolis effect.
- September 30 – Richard Harlan (born 1796), American zoologist.
- November 16 – Abraham Colles (born 1773), Anglo-Irish surgeon.