1840 in science

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The year 1840 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Events

• William Whewell publishes The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, introducing the terms scientist (for the second time) and physicist.
• Justus von Liebig publishes Die Organische Chemie in ihre Anwendung auf Agricultur und Physiologie in Braunschweig, emphasising the importance of agricultural chemistry in crop production; it will go through at least eight editions.

Astronomy

• John William Draper invents astronomical photography and photographs the Moon.

Biology

• John Gould begins publication of The Birds of Australia.

Chemistry

• Germain Hess proposes Hess's law, an early statement of the law of conservation of energy, which establishes that energy changes in a chemical process depend only on the states of the starting and product materials and not on the specific pathway taken between the two states.
• George Richards Elkington patents the electroplating process invented by surgeon John Wright of Birmingham in England.

Earth sciences

• Louis Agassiz publishes his Etudes sur les glaciers, the first major scientific work to propose that the Earth has seen an ice age.

Exploration

• January 19 – Captain Charles Wilkes' United States Exploring Expedition sights Wilkes Land, providing evidence that Antarctica is a complete continent.
• January 21 – Adélie Land first visited by Jules Dumont d'Urville in the French ship Astrolabe.
• The Nemesis (1839) becomes the first iron ship to sail around the Cape of Good Hope, aided by techniques to adjust the compass for the effect of an iron hull developed the year before by George Biddell Airy, the Astronomer Royal.

History of science

• Publication begins in Paris of the Œuvres complètes d’Ambroise Paré edited by Joseph-François Malgaigne.

Medicine

• April 15 – King's College Hospital opens in London.

Metrology

• Joseph Whitworth introduces his precision "end measurements" technique.

Technology

• Robert Bunsen invents the Bunsen cell.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Justus Liebig
• Wollaston Medal: Andre Hubert Dumont

Births

• February 4 – Hiram Maxim (died 1916), inventor of the machine gun.
• February 5 – John Boyd Dunlop (died 1921), inventor.
• February 10 – Per Teodor Cleve (died 1905), chemist.
• March 28 – Emin Pasha (died 1892), explorer.
• March 31 – Benjamin Baker (died 1907), civil engineer.
• April 22 – Thomas Clouston (died 1915), psychiatrist.
• August 4 – Richard von Krafft-Ebing (died 1902), sexologist.
• November 24 – John Brashear (died 1920), astronomer.
• November 29 – James Crichton-Browne (died 1938), psychiatrist.

Deaths

• March 2 – Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers (born 1758), astronomer.
• March 23 – William Maclure (born 1763), geologist.
• April 25 – Siméon Poisson (born 1781), mathematician.
• July 4 – Karl Ferdinand von Graefe (born 1787), surgeon.
• November 2 – Sir Anthony Carlisle (born 1768), surgeon.