1709 in science

The year 1709 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Meteorology

 * January – Great Frost in Western Europe.

Physics

 * Francis Hauksbee publishes Physico-Mechanical Experiments on Various Subjects, summarizing the results of his many experiments with electricity and other topics.

Technology

 * January 10 – Industrial Revolution: Abraham Darby I successfully produces cast iron using coke fuel at his Coalbrookdale blast furnace in Shropshire, England.
 * February 5 – Dramatist John Dennis devises the thundersheet as a new method of producing theatrical thunder for his tragedy Appius and Virginia at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London.
 * March 28 – Johann Friedrich Böttger reports the first production of hard-paste porcelain in Europe, at Dresden.
 * July 13 – Johann Maria Farina founds the first Eau de Cologne and perfume factory in Cologne, Germany.
 * August 8 – Hot air balloon of Bartholome de Gusmão flies in Portugal.
 * A collapsible umbrella is introduced in Paris.

Awards

 * April 9 – Sir Godfrey Copley, 2nd Baronet dies and in his will provides funding to the Royal Society for the annual Copley Medal honoring achievement in science (first awarded in 1731).

Births

 * February 24 – Jacques de Vaucanson, French engineer and inventor (died 1782)
 * March 3 – Andreas Sigismund Marggraf, German chemist (died 1782)
 * March 10 – Georg Steller, German naturalist (died 1746)
 * April 17 – Giovanni Domenico Maraldi, French-Italian astronomer (died 1788)
 * July 11 – Johan Gottschalk Wallerius, Swedish chemist and mineralogist (died 1785)
 * August 8 – Johann Georg Gmelin, German botanist (died 1755)
 * November 23 – Julien Offray de La Mettrie, French physician and philosopher (died 1751)

Deaths

 * early – Eleanor Glanville, English entomologist (born c. 1654)
 * June 29 – Antoine Thomas, Belgian Jesuit astronomer in China (born 1644)
 * June 30 – Edward Lhuyd, Welsh naturalist (born 1660)
 * October 17 – François Mauriceau, French obstetrician (born 1637)