1666 in science

The year 1666 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Events

 * December 22 – French Academy of Sciences first meets.

Astronomy

 * Publication of Stanisław Lubieniecki's Theatrum Cometicum begins in Amsterdam, the first encyclopedia and atlas of comets.

Botany

 * Establishment of Herrenhäuser Gärten, Hanover.

Mathematics

 * Isaac Newton develops differential calculus.
 * Samuel Morland produces several designs of pocket calculating machine and also publishes A New Method of Cryptography.

Physics

 * Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight into the component colours of the optical spectrum, assisting understanding of the nature of light.
 * Robert Hooke and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli both expound gravitation as an attractive force (Hooke's lecture "On gravity" at the Royal Society of London on March 21; Borelli's Theoricae Mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deductae, published in Florence later in the year).

Publications

 * Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne, publishes Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, including an attack on Robert Hooke's Micrographia.

Births

 * December – Stephen Gray, English scientist (died 1736)

Deaths

 * Giovanni Battista Baliani, Genoese physicist (born 1582)
 * Song Yingxing, Chinese encyclopedist (born 1587)