1828 in science

• Félix Savary computes the first orbit of a visual double star when he calculates the orbit of the double star Xi Ursae Majoris.

• April 18 – Ornithologist Carl Julian (von) Graba lands in the little-studied Faroe Islands for a 3-month visit to research the bird life.
• April 27 – London Zoo opens in Regent's Park for members of the Zoological Society of London, the first scientific zoo in the United Kingdom.{{cite web|url=http://www.todayinsci.com/4/4_27.htm|title=April 27|work=Today in Science History|accessdate=December 20, 2011}}
• October 26 – English naturalist and explorer William John Burchell collects the only known specimen of Parabouchetia brasiliensis, an exceptionally rare member of the nightshade family Solanaceae, in central Brazil.
• Karl Ernst von Baer lays the foundations of the science of comparative embryology with his book Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere. He publishes von Baer's laws.
• Martin Lichtenstein publishes a monograph on the Dipodidae, Über die Springmäuse, in Berlin.
• Belfast Botanic Gardens open.

• Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius produces a table of atomic weights and discovers thorium.
• Urea becomes the first organic compound to be artificially synthesised, by Friedrich Wöhler, establishing that organic compounds could be produced from inorganic starting materials and potentially disproving a cornerstone of vitalism, the belief that life is not subject to the laws of science in the way inanimate objects are.{{cite web|url=https://www.sciencehistory.org/historical-profile/justus-von-liebig-and-friedrich-w%C3%B6hler|title=Justus von Liebig and Friedrich Wöhler|publisher=Science History Institute}}{{cite book|last1=Bowden|first1=Mary Ellen|title=Chemical achievers: the human face of the chemical sciences|url=https://archive.org/details/chemicalachiever0000bowd|url-access=registration|date=1997|publisher=Chemical Heritage Foundation|location=Philadelphia, PA|isbn=9780941901123|chapter=Justus von Liebig and Friedrich Wöhler|pages=[https://archive.org/details/chemicalachiever0000bowd/page/83 83-87]}}
• The van Houten family of the Netherlands invent a press to remove about 50% of the cocoa butter from chocolate.{{cite journal|url=http://www.exploratorium.edu/exploring/exploring_chocolate/|title=The Sweet Lure of Chocolate|first=Jim|last=Spadaccini|access-date=March 3, 2014|journal=Exploratorium}}

• February 19 – The Boston Society for Medical Improvement is established in the United States.
• April 17 – Royal Free Hospital, established as the London General Institution for the Gratuitous Care of Malignant Diseases by surgeon William Marsden, opens.
• December 20 – The U.S. State of Georgia legislature charters the Medical Academy of Georgia, which becomes the Medical College of Georgia, and authorizes it to award a Bachelor of Medicine degree, making it the 13th oldest U.S. medical school and the 6th public medical school to be established.
• December 24 – Burke and Hare murders: William Burke is sentenced to hang for his part in the murder of 17 victims to provide bodies for dissection by Edinburgh anatomist Robert Knox.
• F. Maury publishes Traité Complet de l'Art du Dentiste, the first handbook of dentistry.{{cite book|last=Puschmann|first=Theodor|title=Handbuch der Geschichte der Medizin|location=Jena|volume=3|page=384}}

• January 7 – Rev. Henry Duncan describes his discovery of the fossil footmarks of quadrupeds (Chelichnus duncani) in Permian red sandstone in south west Scotland, the first scientific report of a fossil track.{{cite journal|first=Henry|last=Duncan|title=An Account of the Tracks and Footmarks of Animals found impressed on Sandstone in the Quarry of Cornockle Muir in Dumfriesshire|journal= Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh|volume=11|issue=1|date=January 1828|pages=194–209|doi=10.1017/S0080456800021906|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kKNbAAAAcAAJ&q=Transactions+%22Royal+Society+of+Edinburgh%22+1828+duncan+tracks&pg=PA194|accessdate=April 17, 2016}} Published 1831.
• December – Mary Anning discovers Britain's first pterosaur fossil at Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast of England.
• Adolphe Theodore Brongniart publishes Prodrome d'une histoire des Végétaux Fossils, a study of fossil plants.

• Self-taught English mathematician George Green publishes An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism{{cite book|first=George|last=Green|title=An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism|location=Nottingham|publisher=T. Wheelhouse|year=1828|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GwYXAAAAYAAJ&q=An+Essay+on+the+Application+of+Mathematical+Analysis+to+the+Theories|accessdate=November 12, 2013}} in Nottingham, the first mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism, introducing a form of divergence theorem (a version of Green's theorem), the idea of potential theory, and the concept of what will come to be called Green's functions.{{cite book|url=http://name.umdl.umich.edu/AAN8197.0001.001|title=Mathematical papers of the late George Green|editor=Ferrers, N. M.}}{{cite journal|last=Cannell|first=D. M.|year=1999|title=George Green: An Enigmatic Mathematician|journal=American Mathematical Monthly|volume=106|issue=2|pages=136–151|doi=10.2307/2589050|jstor=2589050}}
• Irish astronomer William Rowan Hamilton publishes Theory of Systems of Rays.

• October 1 – James Beaumont Neilson of Scotland patents the hot blast process for ironmaking.{{cite book|first=W.K.V.|last=Gale|title=Ironmaking|location=Princes Risborough|publisher=Shire Publications|year=1981|isbn=0-85263-546-X|page=22}}
• Ányos Jedlik creates the world's first electric motor.
• The brothers John and Charles Deane produce the first diving helmet by adaptation of a smoke helmet produced for them by Augustus Siebe.{{cite book|title=The Infernal Diver: the lives of John and Charles Deane, their invention of the diving helmet and its first application...|first=John|last=Bevan|year=1996|location=London|publisher=Submex|isbn=0-9508242-1-6|pages=28–33}}
• Scottish architect Peter Nicholson sets out a method of preparing stones for construction of a helicoidal skew arch.{{cite book|title=A Popular and Practical Treatise on Masonry and Stone-cutting|first=Peter|last=Nicholson|publisher=Thomas Hurst, Edward Chance & Company|location=London|year=1828|pages=[https://archive.org/details/apopularandprac00nichgoog/page/n93 39]–60|url=https://archive.org/details/apopularandprac00nichgoog}}{{cite journal|title=On the Construction of Oblique Arches|first=Henry|last=Welch|journal=Architectural Magazine|editor=Loudon, John Claudius|publisher=Longman, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman|location=London|year=1837|volume=IV|page=90|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t4IAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA90|quote=The stones were cut, or dressed, previously to the erection of the centre}}{{cite book|title=Benjamin Outram, 1764–1805: An Engineering Biography|first=Reginald B.|last=Schofield|publisher=Merton Priory Press|location=Cardiff|year=2000|pages=149–154|isbn=1-898937-42-7}}
• John Deats obtains his first United States patent for an improved plow.

• Imperial Petersburg Institute of Technology established in the Russian Empire.

• Copley Medal: not awarded{{cite web |title=Copley Medal {{!}} British scientific award |url=https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |accessdate=July 22, 2020 |language=en}}

• April 17
• Sampson Gamgee (died 1886), Tuscan-born English surgeon.
• Johanna Mestorf (died 1909), German prehistoric archaeologist.
• March 24 – Jules Verne (died 1905), French science fiction author.
• April 29 – Étienne Stéphane Tarnier (died 1897), French obstetrician.
• May 8 – Jean Henri Dunant (died 1910), Swiss founder of the Red Cross.
• June 21 – Ferdinand André Fouqué (died 1904), French geologist and petrologist.
• July 23 – Jonathan Hutchinson (died 1913), English physician.
• August 6 – Andrew Taylor Still (died 1917), American "father of osteopathy".
• August 28 – William A. Hammond (died 1900), American military physician and neurologist.
• September 15 – Aleksandr Butlerov (died 1886), Russian chemist.
• October 31 – Joseph Swan (died 1914), English surgeon.
• November 22 – Lydia Shackleton (died 1914), Irish botanical artist.

• March 17 – James Edward Smith (born 1759), English botanist.
• March 23 – David Friesenhausen (born 1756), German-Hungarian-Jewish rabbi, mathematician and astronomer.
• July 5 – Andrew Duncan (born 1744), Scottish physician.
• August 8 – Carl Peter Thunberg (born 1743), Swedish botanist.
• August 22 – Franz Joseph Gall (born 1758), German-born neuroanatomist.
• September 3 - Jean Boniface Textoris (born 1773), French military surgeon.{{Base Léonore|LH//2582/41|id=355243}}
• December 22 – William Hyde Wollaston (born 1766), English chemist.

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Category:19th century in science

Category:1820s in science