1672 in science
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The year 1672 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- February 6 – Isaac Newton submits his first paper on optics to the Royal Society of London.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
- December 23 – Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn.
- John Flamsteed determines the solar parallax from observations of Mars.
Botany
- Robert Morison publishes Plantarum Umbelliferarum Distributio Nova, per Tabulas Cognationis et Affinitatis, ex Libra Naturae observata et detecta, the first monograph devoted to a specific group of plants, the Umbelliferae.<ref name="MBB">Template:Cite book</ref>
Mathematics
- Georg Mohr publishes the Mohr–Mascheroni theorem, that any geometric construction that can be performed by a compass and straightedge can be performed by a compass alone.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Medicine
- Paul Barbette publishes Opera omnia medica et chirurgica.
- Richard Lower publishes De Catarrhis, the first scholarly attempt by an English physician to take a classical doctrine (the theory that nasal catarrh is caused by secretions overspilling from the brain) and to disprove it by scientific experiment.
- Dutch physician Regnier de Graaf describes the female reproductive system.<ref>De mulierum organis generationi inservientibus tractatus novus: demonstrans tam homines & animalia caetera omnia, quae vivipara dicuntur, haud minus quàm ovipara ab ovo originem ducere.</ref>
- Isbrand van Diemerbroeck publishes the first edition of his Anatome corporis humani in Utrecht.
- Thomas Willis publishes the earliest English work on medical psychology, Two Discourses concerning The Soul of Brutes, Which is that of the Vital and Sensitive of Man.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Technology
- Dutch painter Jan van der Heyden improves the fire hose, with his brother Nicolaes, a hydraulic engineer.
Institutions
- January 11 – Isaac Newton is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and it then demonstrates his reflecting telescope to King Charles II of England.
Births
- February 13 – Étienne François Geoffroy, French chemist (died 1731)
- August 2 – Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, Swiss natural historian (died 1733)
- Ann Baynard, English natural philosopher (died 1697)
Deaths
- March – Peter Blondeau, French-born pioneer of mechanised minting of coin
- April 26 – Lionel Lockyer, English quack doctor (born c. 1600)
- July 3 – Francis Willughby, English ornithologist and ichthyologist, pleurisy (born 1635)
- November 19 – John Wilkins, English bishop and natural philosopher, co-founder of the Royal Society (born 1614)
- late – Semyon Dezhnev, Pomor navigator who in 1648 made the first recorded voyage through the Bering Strait (born c. 1605)