1831 in science
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The year 1831 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Astronomy
- January 7 – Great Comet of 1831 (C/1831 A1, 1830 II) first observed by John Herapath.{{cite journal|url=http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1831MNRAS...2....6H&db_key=AST|title=SAO/NASA ADS Astronomy Abstract Service|bibcode=1831MNRAS...2....6H|accessdate=2011-02-06|last1=Herapath |first1=John |journal=Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |year=1831 |volume=2 |page=6 }}
- March 7 – Royal Astronomical Society receives its Royal Charter.{{cite web|url=http://www.ras.org.uk/about-the-ras/a-brief-history|title=A brief history of the RAS|publisher=Royal Astronomical Society|accessdate=2011-02-06| archiveurl= https://web.archive.org/web/20110130164034/http://www.ras.org.uk/about-the-ras/a-brief-history| archivedate= 30 January 2011 | url-status= live}}
- Heinrich Schwabe makes the first detailed drawing of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter.
- Mary Somerville translates Laplace's Mécanique céleste as The Mechanism of the Heavens.
Biology
- September 1 – Zoological Gardens, Dublin, open in Ireland.{{cite web|url=http://www.familyfun.ie/dublin-zoo/|title=History Of Dublin Zoo|work=Family Fun|accessdate=2011-12-20}}
- Robert Brown names the cell nucleus, in a paper to the Linnean Society of London.
Chemistry
- A. A. Bussy publishes his Mémoire sur le Radical métallique de la Magnésie describing his method of isolating magnesium.
- The Kaliapparat, a laboratory device for the analysis of carbon in organic compounds, is invented by Justus von Liebig.
Exploration
- June 1 – British Royal Navy officer James Clark Ross locates the position of the North Magnetic Pole on the Boothia Peninsula.
- December 27 – Charles Darwin starts his voyage on {{HMS|Beagle}} from Plymouth.
Medicine
- May 16 – Middlesex County Asylum for pauper lunatics opens at Hanwell near London under the humane superintendence of William Charles Ellis.
- Dr C. Turner Thackrah publishes The Effects of the Principal Arts, Trades, and Professions, and of Civic States and Habits of Living, on Health and Longevity, with a particular reference to the trades and manufactures of Leeds, and suggestions for the removal of many of the agents which produce disease and shorten the duration of life, a pioneering study of occupational and public health in a newly industrialised English city.{{cite book|first=Tristram|last=Hunt|authorlink=Tristram Hunt|title=Building Jerusalem: the rise and fall of the Victorian city|location=London|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=2004|isbn=0-297-60767-7}}
Paleontology
- Henry Witham publishes Observations on fossil vegetables, accompanied by representations of their internal structure, as seen through the microscope in Edinburgh.
Technology
- April 12 – Broughton Suspension Bridge over the River Irwell in England collapses under marching troops.{{cite book|first=R.E.D.|last=Bishop|title=Vibration|edition=2nd|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1979|isbn=0-521-22779-8}}
- August 29 – Michael Faraday demonstrates electromagnetic induction at the Royal Society of London.{{cite web|url=http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/icons-timeline/1820-1840 |title=Icons, a portrait of England 1820-1840 |accessdate=2007-09-12 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070922055840/http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/icons-timeline/1820-1840 |archivedate=22 September 2007 |url-status=dead }} Joseph Henry recognises it at about the same time.
- October 28 – Faraday develops the Faraday Wheel, a homopolar generator.{{cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=0-14-102715-0|year=2006}}
- Joseph Henry invents the electric bell.{{cite book|title=Scientific writings of Joseph Henry|volume=30 |issue=2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w6cKAAAAIAAJ&q=%22joseph+henry%22+%22i+arranged+around+one+of+the+upper+rooms%22&pg=PA434|page=434|year=1886|publisher=Smithsonian Institution|location=Washington, D.C.}}
- James Meadows Rendel erects the first bascule bridge with a hydraulic mechanism, on the Kingsbridge Estuary in England.{{cite web|first=Mike|last=Clarke|title=A Brief History of Movable Bridges|url=http://www.mikeclarke.myzen.co.uk/Movable%20Bridges.html|date=2009-01-05|accessdate=2012-02-09}}
- William Wallace invents the eidograph.{{cite book|last1=Waterston|first1=Charles D.|last2=Shearer|first2=A. Macmillan|title=Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783-2002: Biographical Index|url=http://www.rse.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf|accessdate=2012-01-23|volume=2|page=964 |publisher=Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=978-0-902198-84-5 |date=July 2006}}
Institutions
Awards
Births
- January 20 – Edward Routh (died 1907), Canadian-born English mathematician.
- January 26 – Heinrich Anton de Bary (died 1888), German surgeon, botanist, microbiologist and mycologist.
- February 28 – Edward James Stone (died 1897), English astronomer.
- March 3 – George Pullman (died 1897), American inventor.
- May 16 – David E. Hughes (died 1900), British inventor.
- June 13 – James Clerk Maxwell (died 1879), Scottish-born mathematician.
- August 20 – Eduard Suess (died 1914), Austrian geologist.
- October 6 – Richard Dedekind (died 1916), German mathematician.
- October 15 – Isabella Bird (died 1904), English explorer, writer, photographer and naturalist.
- October 21 – Hermann Hellriegel (died 1895), German agricultural chemist, discoverer of the mechanism by which leguminous plants assimilate the free nitrogen of the atmosphere.
- October 29 – Othniel Charles Marsh (died 1899), American paleontologist.
- December 5 – Hans Heinrich Landolt (died 1910), Swiss-born chemist.
Deaths
- February 14 – Henry Maudslay (born 1771), English mechanical engineer.
- March 26 - Pierre Amable Jean-Baptiste Trannoy (born 1772), French physician, hygienist and botanist.{{cite web |title=Date of death on the decennial table, page 191 |url=https://archives.somme.fr/ark:/58483/1d93k5tjs8vx/d16ccb72-569a-4d51-9d30-891a3d500277 |website=archives.somme.fr |access-date=5 March 2021 |language=fr}}
- June 27 – Sophie Germain (born 1776), French mathematician.
- October 14 – Jean-Louis Pons (born 1761, French astronomer.
- December 22 – François Huber (born 1750), blind Swiss naturalist.