1736 in science
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The year 1736 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Botany
- Charles Marie de La Condamine, with François Fresneau Gataudière, makes the first scientific observations of rubber, in Ecuador.{{cite book|title=Journal du voyage fait par ordre du roi à l'équateur|location=Paris|year=1751}}
Earth sciences
- June 19 – French Academy of Sciences expedition led by Pierre Louis Maupertuis, with Anders Celsius, begins work on measuring a meridian arc in the Torne Valley of Finland.{{cite web|url=http://www4.rovaniemi.fi/lapinkavijat/maupertuis/index.html|title=Maupertuis'n astemittaus Tornionlaaksossa 1736-1737|language=Finnish|last=Piippola|first=Takalo|accessdate=2008-03-23|archivedate=11 December 2007|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071211104538/http://www4.rovaniemi.fi/lapinkavijat/maupertuis/index.html}}
Mathematics
- June 8 – Leonhard Euler writes to James Stirling describing the Euler–Maclaurin formula, providing a connection between integrals and calculus.
- Euler produces the first published proof of Fermat's "little theorem".Theorematum Quorundam ad Numeros Primos Spectantium Demonstratio.
- Sir Isaac Newton's Method of Fluxions (1671), describing his method of differential calculus, is first published (posthumously) and Thomas Bayes publishes a defense of its logical foundations against the criticism of George Berkeley (anonymously).An Introduction to the Doctrine of Fluxions, and a Defence of the Mathematicians Against the Objections of the Author of the Analyst.
Medicine
- Early 1736 – The “Publick Workhouse and House of Correction” that is to become Bellevue Hospital in New York City is ready for occupancy.{{cite book|last1=Burrows|first1=Edwin G.|last2=Wallace|first2=Mike|title=Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xF4NDALYWSAC|year=1998|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-974120-5|page=156}}{{Cite web|first=Edwin M.|last=Knights |title=Bellevue Hospital |work=History Magazine |url=http://www.history-magazine.com/bellevue.html |access-date=2021-02-06}}
- c. October – Winchester County Hospital, established by Prebendary Alured Clarke, the first voluntary general hospital in the English provinces.
Awards
Births
- January 19 – James Watt, Scottish mechanical engineer (died 1819){{cite web |title=James Watt {{!}} Biography, Inventions, Steam Engine, Significance, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Watt |website=www.britannica.com |access-date=14 May 2023 |language=en}}
- January 25 – Joseph Louis Lagrange, Piedmont-born mathematician (died 1813)
- June 14 – Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, French physicist (died 1806)
- July 12 – Louis Lépecq de La Clôture, French epidemiologist (died 1804){{cite web |url= https://data.bnf.fr/fr/17791340/louis_lepecq_de_la_cloture/|title=Louis Lépecq de La Clôture (1736-1804) |website=data.bnf.fr |publisher=BNF |access-date=21 October 2020}}
- August 19 – Erland Samuel Bring, Swedish mathematician (died 1798)
- November 3 – Christiaan Brunings, Dutch hydraulic engineer (died 1805)
- John Arnold, Cornish-born watchmaker (died 1799)
- Honoré Blanc, French gunsmith (died 1801)
Deaths
- September 16 – Gabriel Fahrenheit, German-born Dutch physicist and engineer (born 1686)
- October 13 – Georges Mareschal, French surgeon (born 1658){{cite web |title=Mareschal, Georges (1658-1736) |url=https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb15372947f |website=catalogue.bnf.fr |publisher=Bibliothèque Nationale de France |access-date=6 February 2021 |language=fr}}