1677 in science

The year 1677 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

 * Publication of the first English star atlas, John Seller's Atlas Coelestis.

Mathematics

 * Publication of Cocker's Arithmetick: Being a Plain and Familiar Method Suitable to the Meanest Capacity for the Full Understanding of That Incomparable Art, As It Is Now Taught by the Ablest School-Masters in City and Country, attributed to Edward Cocker (died 1676). It will remain a standard grammar school textbook in England for more than 150 years.

Medicine

 * January 21 – A pamphlet on smallpox published in Boston becomes the first medical publication in the British colonies in North America.

Microbiology

 * Antonie van Leeuwenhoek discovers the spermatozoon.

Paleontology

 * Robert Plot publishes The Natural History of Oxford-shire, Being an Essay Toward the Natural History of England, in which he describes the fossilised femur of a human giant, now known to be from the dinosaur Megalosaurus.

Births

 * February 8 – Jacques Cassini, French astronomer (died 1756)
 * September 17 – Stephen Hales, English physiologist and clergyman (died 1761)
 * September 27 – Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr, German mathematician, astronomer and cartographer (died 1750)

Deaths

 * May 4 – Isaac Barrow, English mathematician (born 1630)
 * May 23 (bur.) – John Kersey, English mathematician (born 1677)
 * October 11 – Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, Dutch-born drainage engineer (born 1595).
 * October 14 – Francis Glisson, English physician (born 1599?)