1672 in science

The year 1672 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

February 6 – Isaac Newton submits his first paper on optics to the Royal Society of London.{{cite journal|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1432118#.YjjdwzjMJEY|title=A Letter of Mr. Isaac Newton, Professor of the Mathematicks in the University of Cambridge; Containing His New Theory about Light and Colors: Sent by the Author to the Publisher from Cambridge, Febr. 6. 1671/72; In Order to be Communicated to the R. Society|journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society|location=London|date=1672-02-19|quote=The Original or primary colours are, Red, Yellow, Green, Blew, and a Violet-purple, together with Orange, Indico, and an indefinite variety of Intermediate gradations.}}
December 23 – Giovanni Cassini discovers Rhea, a satellite of Saturn.
John Flamsteed determines the solar parallax from observations of Mars.

Robert Morison publishes Plantarum Umbelliferarum Distributio Nova, per Tabulas Cognationis et Affinitatis, ex Libra Naturae observata et detecta, the first monograph devoted to a specific group of plants, the Umbelliferae.{{cite book|last=Oliver|first=Francis Wall|title=Makers of British Botany|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1913|pages=15–16|chapter=Robert Morison 1620–1683...|url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Makers_of_British_botany/Robert_Morison_1620%E2%80%941683_and_John_Ray_1627%E2%80%941705}}

Georg Mohr publishes the Mohr–Mascheroni theorem, that any geometric construction that can be performed by a compass and straightedge can be performed by a compass alone.{{cite book|first=Georg|last=Mohr|title=Euclides Danicus|location=Amsterdam|publisher=Jacob van Velsen|year=1672}}{{cite book|first=Tony|last=Crilly|title=50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know|location=London|publisher=Quercus|year=2007|isbn=978-1-84724-008-8|page=80}}

Paul Barbette publishes Opera omnia medica et chirurgica.
Richard Lower publishes De Catarrhis, the first scholarly attempt by an English physician to take a classical doctrine (the theory that nasal catarrh is caused by secretions overspilling from the brain) and to disprove it by scientific experiment.
Dutch physician Regnier de Graaf describes the female reproductive system.[https://archive.org/details/BIUSante_34292/page/n3 De mulierum organis generationi inservientibus tractatus novus: demonstrans tam homines & animalia caetera omnia, quae vivipara dicuntur, haud minus quàm ovipara ab ovo originem ducere.]
Isbrand van Diemerbroeck publishes the first edition of his Anatome corporis humani in Utrecht.
Thomas Willis publishes the earliest English work on medical psychology, Two Discourses concerning The Soul of Brutes, Which is that of the Vital and Sensitive of Man.{{cite web|title=Thomas Willis|url=http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/336.html|work=Whonamedit?|accessdate=2011-03-15}}

Dutch painter Jan van der Heyden improves the fire hose, with his brother Nicolaes, a hydraulic engineer.

January 11 – Isaac Newton is elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London{{cite web|year=2015|title=Fellowship of the Royal Society 1660-2015|url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RVVZY00MZNrK2YCTTzVrbTFH2t3RxoAZah128gQR-NM/pubhtml|publisher=Royal Society|location=London|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151015185820/https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RVVZY00MZNrK2YCTTzVrbTFH2t3RxoAZah128gQR-NM/pubhtml|archive-date=2015-10-15|url-status=dead}} and it then demonstrates his reflecting telescope to King Charles II of England.

March – Peter Blondeau, French-born pioneer of mechanised minting of coin
April 26 – Lionel Lockyer, English quack doctor (born c. 1600)
July 3 – Francis Willughby, English ornithologist and ichthyologist, pleurisy (born 1635)
November 19 – John Wilkins, English bishop and natural philosopher, co-founder of the Royal Society (born 1614)
late – Semyon Dezhnev, Pomor navigator who in 1648 made the first recorded voyage through the Bering Strait (born c. 1605)