1826 in science

The year 1826 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

 * Mary Somerville presents a paper on "The Magnetic Properties of the Violet Rays of the Solar Spectrum" to the Royal Society in London.

Chemistry

 * Otto Unverdorben first isolates aniline, by destructive distillation of indigo; he calls it Crystallin.
 * Antoine Jerome Balard isolates bromine.
 * Pierre Jean Robiquet isolates the dye alizarin.
 * Michael Faraday determines the chemical formula of naphthalene.

Exploration

 * May 22 – HMS Beagle departs on her first voyage from Plymouth for a hydrographic survey of the Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego regions of South America.
 * Hyacinthe de Bougainville completes a three-year global circumnavigation.

Mathematics

 * Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik is founded by August Leopold Crelle in Berlin.
 * February 23 – Nikolai Lobachevsky first presents his system of non-Euclidean hyperbolic geometry.

Physiology and medicine

 * Johannes Peter Müller publishes his first important works, Zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtsinns ("On the comparative physiology of sight", Leipzig) and Über die phantastischen Gesichtserscheinungen ("On visual hallucination", Coblenz), making a first statement of the law of specific nerve energies.

Technology

 * January 30 – The Menai Suspension Bridge, built by engineer Thomas Telford, is opened between the island of Anglesey and the mainland of Wales.
 * April 1 – American inventor Samuel Morey patents a compressionless internal combustion engine in the United States.
 * June – Nicéphore Niépce produces the first photograph, View from the Window at Le Gras.
 * Benoit Fourneyron develops an efficient outward-flow water turbine.

Zoology

 * Karl Ernst von Baer discovers the mammalian ovum.
 * The Austrian zoologist Johann Nepomuk Meyer first describes the Asiatic lion under the name Felis leo persicus.
 * The Zoological Society of London is founded by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles.

Awards

 * Copley Medal: James South

Births

 * January 15 – Marie Pasteur (died 1910), French chemist.
 * May 26 – Richard Carrington (died 1875), English astronomer.
 * June 26 – Morgan Crofton (died 1915), Irish mathematician.
 * July 7 – John Fowler (died 1864), English agricultural engineer.
 * July 13 – Stanislao Cannizzaro (died 1910), Italian chemist.
 * August 21 – Carl Gegenbaur (died 1903), German anatomist.
 * September 17 – Bernhard Riemann (died 1866), German mathematician.
 * October 8 – Emily Blackwell (died 1910), American physician.
 * Alphonse de Polignac (died 1863), French mathematician.

Deaths

 * January 3 – Marie Le Masson Le Golft (born 1750), French naturalist.
 * January 6 – John Farey (born 1766), English geologist.
 * March 28 - Jean-Baptiste Dumangin (born 1744), French physician.
 * June 7 – Joseph von Fraunhofer (born 1787), German physicist.
 * June 30 - Clément Joseph Tissot (born 1747), French physician and physiotherapist.
 * July 4 – Thomas Jefferson (born 1743), Founding Father and 3rd President of the United States and inventor.
 * July 22 – Giuseppe Piazzi (born 1746), Italian astronomer.
 * August 13 - René Laennec (born 1781), French physician and musician.
 * September 6 - Andrea Vaccà Berlinghieri (born 1772), Italian surgeon.
 * October 25 – Philippe Pinel (born 1745), French psychiatrist.
 * November 23 – Johann Elert Bode (born 1747), German astronomer.
 * November 24 - Clarke Abel (born 1780), British surgeon and naturalist.