1806 in science

The year 1806 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

 * Publication begins in London of the Flora Graeca collected by John Sibthorp.
 * Pierre André Latreille begins publication in France of Genera crustaceorum et insectorum, secundum ordinem naturalem ut familias disposita.

Chemistry

 * November 20 – Humphry Davy presents the results of his researches in the electrolysis of water to the Royal Society of London.
 * Louis Nicolas Vauquelin and Pierre Jean Robiquet isolate asparagine in crystalline form from asparagus juice in France, the first amino acid identified.

Exploration

 * August – English seal hunter Abraham Bristow discovers the Auckland Islands.

Mathematics

 * Jean-Robert Argand introduces the Argand diagram.
 * Adrien-Marie Legendre gives the first published application of the method of least squares, in a supplement to his Nouvelles méthodes pour la détermination des orbites des comètes.

Medicine

 * John Bell concludes publication of The Principles of Surgery in two volumes (1801–06). Its treatment of arterial surgery in particular ranks him as a founder of vascular surgery. His brother Charles Bell publishes Essays on The Anatomy of Expression in Painting.

Technology

 * October 7 – Carbon paper patented by Ralph Wedgwood in the United Kingdom.

Awards

 * Copley Medal: Thomas Andrew Knight

Births

 * January 14 – Matthew Fontaine Maury, American oceanographer (died 1873)
 * February 14 – Joseph-François Malgaigne, French surgeon (died 1865)
 * February 18 – Eduard Heis, German mathematician and astronomer (died 1877)
 * April 9 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel, British civil engineer (died 1859)
 * June 12 – John A. Roebling, German American bridge engineer (died 1869)
 * June 27 – Augustus De Morgan, British logician (died 1871)
 * November 21 – Alexander Henry Haliday, Irish entomologist (died 1870)
 * December 11 – Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich, German geologist (died 1886)
 * Luther V. Bell, American psychiatric physician (died 1862)

Deaths

 * c. January?? – Mungo Park, Scottish explorer of West Africa (born 1771)
 * April 5 – Benjamin Bell, Scottish surgeon (born 1749)
 * June 23 – Mathurin Jacques Brisson, French zoologist (born 1723)
 * August 3 – Michel Adanson, French botanist (born 1727)
 * August 23 – Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, French physicist (born 1736)
 * October 9 – Benjamin Banneker, African-American astronomer and surveyor (born 1731)