1679 in science

The year 1679 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Botany

 * Establishment of Hortus Botanicus (Amsterdam).

Mathematics

 * Samuel Morland publishes The Doctrine of Interest, both Simple & Compound, probably the first tables produced with the aid of a calculating machine.

Medicine

 * Great Plague of Vienna.
 * Franciscus Sylvius' Opera Medica, published posthumously, recognizes scrofula and phthisis as forms of tuberculosis.

Technology

 * Pierre-Paul Riquet excavates Malpas Tunnel on the Canal du Midi in Hérault, France, Europe's first navigable canal tunnel (165 m, concrete lined).

Publications

 * Publication in Paris of the first of Edme Mariotte's Essays de physique: De la végétation des plantes, a pioneering discussion of plant physiology; and De la nature de l'air, a statement of Boyle's law.
 * Publication by the Paris Observatory of the world's first national ephemeris almanac, the Connaissance des tems, compiled by Jean Picard.

Births

 * January 2 - Pierre Fauchard, French physician (died 1761).
 * January 24 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher, mathematician and scientist (died 1754)

Deaths

 * January 14 – Jacques de Billy, French Jesuit mathematician (born 1602)