Overview of the events of 1720 in science
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The year 1720 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- February 10 – Edmond Halley is appointed as Astronomer Royal of England.
Medicine
- May – First patient admitted to the Westminster Public Infirmary, predecessor of St George's Hospital, London.
- Dr Steevens' Hospital is established at Kilmainham, Dublin.
- Great Plague of Marseille, the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Europe.
- English physician Richard Mead publishes A Short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Method to be used to prevent it.
Physics
- Willem 's Gravesande publishes Physices elementa mathematica, experimentis confirmata, sive introductio ad philosophiam Newtonianam, an introduction to Newtonian physics, in Leiden.
Technology
- A theodolite is developed by Jonathan Sisson of England.
- Pinchbeck is invented by English watchmaker Christopher Pinchbeck; it is an alloy of 83% copper and 17% zinc, creating a strong, hard-wearing metal which has the appearance and weight of 20 carat gold.
- An early chronograph is invented which has only mechanical parts in it.
- Henry de Saumarez (of the Channel Islands) produces an instrument called the Marine Surveyor intended to measure a ship's velocity.
- A single-action five-pedal harp is developed by Jacob Hochbrucker of Bavaria which can raise the pitch of the selected strings by a half step.
- approx. date – Joseph Williamson uses a differential gear in a clock.
Births
- January 30 – Charles De Geer, Swedish industrialist and entomologist (died 1778)
- March 13 – Charles Bonnet, Genevan naturalist and philosophical writer (died 1793)
- July 18 – Gilbert White, English naturalist (died 1793)
- October 8 – Geneviève Thiroux d'Arconville, French novelist, translator and chemist (d. 1805)
- November 5 - Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet, French pharmacist and botanist (died 1778)
- December ? – James Hargreaves, English inventor (died 1778)
- approx. date – Dmitry Ivanovich Vinogradov, Russian chemist and (died 1758)
Deaths
- December 29 – Maria Margarethe Kirch, German astronomer (born 1670)
- David Gregory, Scottish physician and inventor (born 1625)
References
- Kirkpatrick, Thomas Percy Claude (1924). The History of Dr Steevens' Hospital, Dublin 1720–1920. Dublin University Press.
- Robinson, A. H. W. (1956). "Forum". Journal of Navigation. 9: 358-40. doi:10.1017/S0373463300036493.
- "Maria Kirch - German astronomer". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 5 April 2018.