1823 in science

The year 1823 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

Olbers' paradox is described by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers.
Cambridge Observatory established in England.{{cite journal|last=Stratton|first=F. J. M.|title=The History of the Cambridge Observatories|journal=Annals of the Solar Physics Observatory, Cambridge|volume=1|year=1949}}
December 29 – Great Comet of 1823 first observed.

June 17 – Charles Macintosh patents a method of rubberizing fabric to waterproof it.{{cite web|first=R. B.|last=Prosser|title=Macintosh, Charles (1766–1843)|work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17541|accessdate=2011-04-23|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/17541}} {{ODNBsub}}

February 20 – James Weddell's expedition to Antarctica reaches latitude 74°15' S and longitude 34°16'45" W, the most southerly position that will be attained for more than 80 years.

János Bolyai completes a treatise on parallel lines that he calls absolute geometry, although it will not be published until 1832.

After August – Philipp Franz von Siebold begins to introduce Western medicine to Japan.
October 5 – The Lancet founded by Thomas Wakley.
Theodric Romeyn Beck publishes the first significant American book on forensic medicine, Elements of Medical Jurisprudence in Albany, New York.

January 23 – In a cave on the Gower Peninsula of Wales, William Buckland inspects the "Red Lady of Paviland", the first identification of a prehistoric (male) human burial. The bones, discovered on December 21 last, are with those of the woolly mammoth, proving that the two had coexisted, although Buckland dates th human remains as Roman.{{cite journal|first=Stephen|last=Aldhouse-Green|title=Great Sites: Paviland Cave|journal=British Archaeology|issue=61|url=http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba61/feat3.shtml|accessdate=2010-07-16|date=October 2001|archive-date=2006-02-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060228141222/http://www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba61/feat3.shtml|url-status=dead}}
December 10 – On the Jurassic Coast of southern England, Mary Anning finds the first complete Plesiosaurus skeleton.{{cite journal|last=Torrens|first=Hugh|year=1995|title=Mary Anning (1799–1847) of Lyme; 'The Greatest Fossilist the World Ever Knew'|journal=The British Journal for the History of Science|volume=25|issue=3|pages=257–284|doi=10.1017/s0007087400033161|doi-access=free}}

December 6 – English inventor Samuel Brown obtains his first patent for a hydrogen fuelled compressionless atmospheric gas vacuum engine,Gill, T. (1826). The Technical Repository, p. 383. the first internal combustion engine to be applied industrially.{{cite book|title=Samuel Morey and his atmospheric engine|first=Horst O.|last=Hardenberg|location=Warrendale, Pa.|publisher=Society of Automotive Engineers|year=1992|series=SP-922|isbn=1-56091-240-5}}
First use of a Fresnel lens in a lighthouse optic, at the Cordouan lighthouse on the Gironde estuary.{{cite journal|last=Watson|first=Bruce|title=Science Makes a Better Lighthouse Lens|journal=Smithsonian |volume=30|page=30 |date=August 1999}}
First permanent wire cable suspension bridge, Pont Saint Antoine in Geneva, by Guillaume Henri Dufour, of two 40 m spans.{{cite book|last=Peters|first=Tom F.|author2=Andrea L.|title=Transitions in Engineering: Guillaume Henri Dufour and the Early 19th Century Cable Suspension Bridges|location=Basel|publisher=Birkhauser|year=1987|isbn=3-7643-1929-1}}
First cast iron framed greenhouse erected at Wollaton Park in England as a Camellia house.
French officer Henri-Joseph Paixhans develops the Paixhans gun, the first naval artillery to fire explosive shells.

Copley Medal: John Pond{{cite web |title=Copley Medal {{!}} British scientific award |url=https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |accessdate=22 July 2020 |language=en}}

January 3 – Robert Whitehead (died 1905), English inventor of the self-propelled torpedo.
January 8 – Alfred Russel Wallace (died 1913), British naturalist who devises the theory of natural selection at the same time as Charles Darwin.
February 3 – Spencer Fullerton Baird (died 1887), American ornithologist and ichthyologist.
March 21 – Jules Émile Planchon (died 1888), French botanist.
December 22 – Jean Henri Fabre (died 1915), French entomologist.
December 23 – Thomas W. Evans (died 1897), American-born dentist.{{citation|editor-last=Johnson|editor-first=Rossiter|editor2-last=Brown|editor2-first=John Howard|title=The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans|publisher=The Biographical Society|volume=4|place=Boston, MA|year=1904|contribution=Thomas William Evans|contribution-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q1IDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT25#PPT24,M1|access-date=2009-06-12}}.