1872 in science

The year 1872 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Chemistry

• Robert Chesebrough patents Vaseline in the United States<ref>U.S. Patent 127,568.</ref>
• Eugen Baumann rediscovers polyvinyl chloride
• Charles-Adolphe Wurtz discovers the aldol reaction

Conservation

• March 1 – Yellowstone National Park is established in the United States, the world's first national park<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>U.S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 17, Chap. 24, pp. 32-33. "An Act to set apart a certain Tract of Land lying near the Head-waters of the Yellowstone River as a public Park." From The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920 collection, Library of Congress.</ref>

Exploration

• May 13–September 26 – Benjamin Leigh Smith's 1872 expedition to Jan Mayen and Svalbard.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• December 21 – Challenger expedition: Template:HMS sails from Portsmouth in England on the 4-year scientific expedition that lays the foundation for the science of oceanography<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Mathematics

• Richard Dedekind publishes Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen, a theory of irrational numbers<ref name=Crilly>Template:Cite book</ref>
• Felix Klein produces the Erlangen program on geometries<ref name=Crilly/>

Medicine

• February 15 – George Huntington makes the first detailed description of Huntington's disease, in Middleport, Ohio<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
• Moritz Kaposi describes Kaposi's sarcoma<ref>Template:Cite journal Translated as: Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref> and the manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus

• Ferdinand Monoyer proposes the dioptre as a unit for measuring the optical power of a lens<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Physics

• Ludwig Boltzmann states the Boltzmann equation for the temporal development of distribution functions in phase space, and publishes his H-theorem<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Technology

• April 2 – George Brayton obtains a United States patent for a constant pressure internal combustion engine, initially using vaporized gas, and marketed as 'Brayton's Ready Motor'.<ref>Improvement in Gas-Engines (Patent no. 125166).</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• John Hopkinson proposes the group flash system for distinguishing lighthouses<ref>Template:Cite ODNB </ref>
• Reverend C. M. Ramus of Sussex, England, devises the single-step hydroplane hull<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Institutions

• October 1 – the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College begins its first academic session
• The Polytechnic Museum in Moscow is founded<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Publications

• May – the magazine Popular Science is first published in the United States
• Charles Darwin publishes The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

Awards

• Copley Medal: Friedrich Woehler<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref>

• Wollaston Medal for geology: James Dwight Dana

Births

• April 5 – Samuel Cate Prescott (died 1962), American food scientist and microbiologist
• April 21 - Charles Gandy (died 1943), French physician.
• May 6 – Willem de Sitter (died 1934), Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer
• May 21 – Henry E. Warren (died 1957), American inventor
• May 31 – Charles Greeley Abbot (died 1973), American astrophysicist
• August 1 – Solomon Carter Fuller (died 1953), Liberian-born psychiatrist
• September 23 – Marie Depage (died in sinking of the RMS Lusitania 1915), Belgian nurse
• October 4 – Ernest Fourneau (died 1949), French medicinal chemist

Deaths

• March 8 – Priscilla Susan Bury (born 1799), English botanist<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
• April 2 – Samuel Morse (born 1791), American inventor
• May 6 – George Robert Gray (born 1808), English zoologist
• August 11 – Sir Andrew Smith (born 1797), Scottish-born military surgeon, explorer, ethnologist and zoologist
• August 22 – Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (born 1787), French physician
• November 7 – Alfred Clebsch (born 1833), German mathematician
• December 6 – Félix Archimède Pouchet (born 1800), French scientist
• December 24 – William John Macquorn Rankine (born 1820), Scottish physicist
• Anne Elizabeth Ball (born 1808), Irish psychologist