1862 in science

The year 1862 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• January 31 – Alvan Graham Clark makes the first observation of Sirius B, a white dwarf star, through an eighteen-inch telescope at Northwestern University in Illinois.

Biology

• May 15 – Charles Darwin publishes On the various contrivances by which British and foreign Orchids are fertilised by insects, and on the good effects of intercrossing.
• Henry Walter Bates publishes "Contributions to an insect fauna of the Amazon valley. Lepidoptera: Heliconidae"<ref>Transactions of the Linnean Society (London) 23 pp. 495–566.</ref> describing Batesian mimicry.
• George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker begin publication of Genera plantarum based on the collections of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, England.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• John Gwyn Jeffreys begins publication of British Conchology, or an account of the Mollusca which now inhabit the British Isles and the surrounding seas.

Chemistry

• Chemist and composer Alexander Borodin describes the first nucleophilic displacement of chlorine by fluorine in benzoyl chloride.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Mineralogist Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois makes the first proposal to arrange the chemical elements in order of atomic weights, although this is largely ignored by chemists.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Alexander Parkes exhibits Parkesine, one of the earliest synthetic polymers, at the International Exhibition in London. This discovery forms the foundation of the modern plastics industry.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Earth sciences

• Friedrich Albert Fallou publishes "Pedologie oder allgemeine und besondere Bodenkunde" (Pedology or general and special soil science), founding soil science.<ref name=yari>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Medicine

• Maurice Raynaud describes the vasospastic syndrome named after him in his doctoral dissertation.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Hermann Snellen publishes the Snellen chart for testing visual acuity.

Paleontology

• November 20 – Richard Owen first describes a fossilised bird, Archaeopteryx, to the Royal Society of London.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Technology

• July 8 – Theodore Timby is granted a United States patent for discharging guns in a revolving turret, using electricity.
• July 22 – Henry O. Peabody is granted a United States patent for the Peabody action for rifles.
• November 4 – Richard Jordan Gatling is granted a United States patent for the Gatling gun.
• Brown & Sharpe produce the first Universal Milling machine.<ref>Template:Roe1916</ref>
• David Kirkaldy publishes Results of an Experimental Inquiry into the Comparative Tensile Strength and other properties of various kinds of Wrought-Iron and Steel in Glasgow describing his pioneering work in tensile testing.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Thomas Graham<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• Wollaston Medal for geology: Robert Godwin-Austen

Births

• January 23 – David Hilbert (died 1943), German mathematician
• February 14 – Agnes Pockels (died 1935), German chemist (in Venice)
• March 14 – Vilhelm Bjerknes (died 1951), Norwegian physicist and meteorologist
• May 27 – John Edward Campbell (died 1924), Irish-born mathematician
• June 7 – Philipp Lenard (died 1947), German physicist
• June 9 – Ernest William Moir (died 1933), British civil engineer
• July 2 – William Henry Bragg (died 1942), English winner of the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics
• August 2 – Paul Bujor (died 1952), Romanian animal morphologist, politician and short story writer
• October 12 – Theodor Boveri (died 1915), German geneticist
• October 19 – Auguste Lumière (died 1954), French inventor, film pioneer
• November 23 - Ernest Guglielminetti (died 1943), Swiss physician<ref>Template:In lang {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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• William Hoskins (died 1934), American inventor

Deaths

• January 10 – Samuel Colt (born 1814), American inventor
• February 3 – Jean-Baptiste Biot (born 1774), French physicist
• February 7 – Prosper Ménière (born 1799), French physician who first described the symptoms of Ménière's disease
• February 11 – Luther V. Bell (born 1806), American psychiatric physician
• March 1 – Peter Barlow (born 1776), English mathematician
• April 3 – Sir James Clark Ross (born 1800), English explorer of the Polar regions
• May 6 – Olry Terquem (born 1782), French Jewish geometer
• October 8 – James Walker (born 1781), Scottish-born civil engineer
• October 21 – Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet (born 1783), English physiologist
• December 18 – Lucas Barrett (born 1837), English naturalist (drowned)
• December 20 – Robert Knox (born 1791), Scottish anatomist
• December 21 – Karl Kreil (born 1798), Austrian astronomer