1679 in science

The year 1679 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Botany

Samuel Morland publishes The Doctrine of Interest, both Simple & Compound, probably the first tables produced with the aid of a calculating machine.{{cite book|first=H. W.|last=Dickinson|title=Sir Samuel Morland: diplomat and inventor 1625-1695|url=https://archive.org/details/sirsamuelmorland0000dick|url-access=registration|location=Cambridge|publisher=Heffer for the Newcomen Society|year=1970|isbn=0-85270-061-X}}

Great Plague of Vienna.
Franciscus Sylvius' Opera Medica, published posthumously, recognizes scrofula and phthisis as forms of tuberculosis.

Pierre-Paul Riquet excavates Malpas Tunnel on the Canal du Midi in Hérault, France, Europe's first navigable canal tunnel (165 m, concrete lined).{{cite book|last=Roland|first=Claudine|title=The Canal du Midi|year=1997|publisher=MSM|isbn=2-909998-66-5}}

Maria Sibylla Merian publishes the first part of Der Raupen wunderbare Verwandlung und sonderbare Blumennahrung ("The Caterpillars' Marvellous Transformation and Strange Floral Food"), comprising detailed illustrated descriptions of insect metamorphosis.{{cite book|last=Etheridge|first=Kay|title=The Flowering of Ecology: Maria Sibylla Merian's Caterpillar Book|year=2020|publisher=Brill}}

Publication in Paris of the first of Edme Mariotte's Essays de physique: De la végétation des plantes, a pioneering discussion of plant physiology; and De la nature de l'air, a statement of Boyle's law.
Publication by the Paris Observatory of the world's first national ephemeris almanac, the Connaissance des tems, compiled by Jean Picard.

January 2 – Pierre Fauchard, French physician (died 1761).{{Cite web |language=fr |author=Jean-François Vincent |title=Fauchard, Pierre |publisher=Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de Santé, Université de Paris (Base biographique) |url=https://www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr/histoire/biographies/index.php?cle=6108 |access-date=2021-02-08 |website=www.biusante.parisdescartes.fr}}
January 24 – Christian Wolff, German philosopher, mathematician and scientist (died 1754)