1888 in science

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The year 1888, the year of the Celtic, in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Events

• International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry, in Glasgow, Scotland

Astronomy

• January 3 – The 91 cm refracting telescope at Lick Observatory is first used. The James Lick telescope is the largest refractor in the world at this time, and the observatory is the first established at the top of a mountain.
• The 76 cm refracting telescope is completed at Nice Observatory.
• John Louis Emil Dreyer's New General Catalogue is published.^[1]

Biology

• June 30 – The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom opens its laboratory on Plymouth Hoe.
• Seventeen biologists found the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, which will become a major center of applied research.^[2]
• Peter Hermann Stillmark describes the isolation of ricin, thus founding the field of lectinology.

Chemistry

• Methyl isocyanate is discovered.
• Henri-Louis Le Chatelier states that the response of a chemical system perturbed from equilibrium will be to counteract the perturbation.
• Emil Fischer establishes the relation between glucose, fructose and mannose by passage to a common osazone.^[3]

Geography

• January 27 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C. by Gardiner Greene Hubbard.

Mathematics

• The American Mathematical Society is founded by Thomas Fiske.
• Hilbert's basis theorem is first proved by David Hilbert.
• Francis Galton introduces the concept of correlation in statistics.^[4]
• Richard Dedekind publishes Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen? ("What are numbers and what should they be?") which includes his definition of an infinite set.^[5]
• Sofia Kovalevskaya discovers the 'Kovalevskaya top'.^[6][7]

Meteorology

• The global atmospheric temperature returns to normal, five years after the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa (Krakatau). The volcanic dust veil, that has created spectacular atmospheric effects, also acted as a solar-radiation filter, lowering global temperatures by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius in the year after the eruption.

Physics

• Heinrich Rudolf Hertz discovers radio waves.

Physiology and medicine

• Giovanni Martinotti describes cortical cells later known as Martinotti cells.
• Emile Roux and Alexandre Yersin isolate diphtheria toxin.^[8]

Technology

• May 1 – Nikola Tesla is granted a United States patent^[9] for the induction motor.
• May 15 – Emile Berliner is granted a US patent^[10] for the gramophone record.
• August 10 – Gottlieb Daimler flies in an airship designed by Dr. Frederich Wölfert powered by a Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft-built petrol engine.^[11]
• September 4 – George Eastman is granted a US patent^[12] for his roll film camera, for which he registers the trademark Kodak.
• October 3 – The first patent^[13] for a ballpoint pen is granted to John Loud, a British tanner who wishes to produce a writing instrument that can write on leather.^[14]
• October 14 – Louis Le Prince shoots the first recorded film, Roundhay Garden Scene, in Leeds, England, using a single lens camera and Eastman paper film.^[15][16]
• December 7 – John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic bicycle tyre.^[17]

Awards

• Copley Medal: Thomas Henry Huxley
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Henry Benedict Medlicott

Births

• February 14 – Robert Remak (died 1942), mathematician.
• February 17 – Otto Stern (died 1969), physicist, Nobel laureate in Physics in 1943.
• May 13 – Inge Lehmann (died 1993), seismologist.
• June 12 – Zygmunt Janiszewski (died 1920), mathematician.
• July 23 – Ivan Magill (died 1986), anaesthesiologist.
• August 13 – John Logie Baird (died 1946), inventor.
• November 15 – Harald Ulrik Sverdrup (died 1957), meteorologist and oceanographer.
• November 24 – Eduard Pernkopf (died 1955), anatomist.

Deaths

• January 19 – Anton de Bary (born 1831), surgeon, botanist, microbiologist and mycologist.
• February 22 – Anna Kingsford (born 1846), physician, anti-vivisectionist and vegetarian.
• March 9 – Robert Gordon Latham (born 1812), ethnologist and philologist.
• March 15 – Squire Whipple (born 1804), civil engineer.
• May 21 – Friedrich Gerke (born 1801), pioneer of telegraphy.
• August 23 – Philip Henry Gosse (born 1810), science writer.
• August 24 – Rudolf Clausius (born 1822), physicist.
• September 12 – Richard Anthony Proctor (born 1837), astronomer.
• November 1 – Nikolai Przhevalsky (born 1839), explorer.

References

1. Dreyer, J. L. E. (1888). "A New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, being the Catalogue of the late Sir John F.W. Herschel, Bart., revised, corrected, and enlarged" (PDF). Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society. 49: 1–237. Bibcode:1888MmRAS..49....1D.
2. Maienschein, Jane (1989). One Hundred Years Exploring Life, 1888-1988: the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole. Boston: Jones & Bartlett. ISBN 0-86720-120-7.
3. Helferich, B. (1953). "Emil Fischer zum 100. Geburtstag". Angewandte Chemie. 65 (2): 45. doi:10.1002/ange.19530650202.
4. Bulmer, Michael (2003). Francis Galton: Pioneer of Heredity and Biometry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 191–196. ISBN 0-8018-7403-3.
5. Texts: Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen?; Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen?; translation: Ewald, William B. (ed). (1996). From Kant to Hilbert: A Source Book in the Foundations of Mathematics. Oxford University Press. 787-832.
6. Kovalevskaya, S. (1889). "Sur le problème de le rotation d'un corps solide autour d'un point fixe". Acta Mathematica. 12: 177–232. doi:10.1007/bf02592182.
7. Cooke, Roger (1984). The Mathematics of Sonya Kovalevskaya. New York: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 978-0-387-96030-2.
8. Waldman, Thomas A. (2003). "Immunotherapy: past, present and future". Nature Medicine. 9: 269–277.
9. U.S. Patent 381,968
10. U.S. Patent 382,790
11. Member's Circular Letter February 2008. zeppelin-tourismus.de.
12. U.S. Patent 388,850. Filed in March.
13. UK Patent No. 15630.
14. Collingridge, Jeremy M. R.; et al. (2007). "Ink Reservoir Writing Instruments 1905–20". Transactions of the Newcomen Society. 77 (1): 69–100. doi:10.1179/175035207X163361.
15. "Louis Le Prince". Local Heroes. BBC Education. 1999-11-28. Archived from the original on November 28, 1999. Retrieved 2011-08-14.
16. Howells, Richard (Summer 2006). "Louis Le Prince: the body of evidence". Screen. Oxford Journals. 47 (2): 179–200. doi:10.1093/screen/hjl015. ISSN 0036-9543. Retrieved 2009-04-16.
17. Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 2006. ISBN 0-14-102715-0.