1854 in science

• July 22 – Discovery of the asteroid 30 Urania by John Russell Hind.
• October c. – George Airy calculates the mean density of the Earth by measuring the gravity in a coal mine in South Shields.

• Benjamin Silliman of Yale University is the first person to fractionate petroleum into its individual components by distillation.

• January 4 – First definite sighting of McDonald Islands in the Antarctic.

• March 26 – Playfair cipher first demonstrated, by Charles Wheatstone.
• George Boole's work on algebraic logic, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities, published in London.{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Hywel|title=Cassell's Chronology of World History|url=https://archive.org/details/cassellschronolo0000will|url-access=registration|location=London|publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson|year=2005|isbn=0-304-35730-8}}
• Arthur Cayley states the original version of Cayley's theorem and produces the first Cayley table.{{citation|last=Cayley|first=Arthur|title=On the theory of groups as depending on the symbolic equation θⁿ=1|journal=Philosophical Magazine|volume=7|issue=4|pages=40–47|year=1854}}{{cite book|first=Tony|last=Crilly|title=50 Mathematical Ideas you really need to know|location=London|publisher=Quercus|year=2007|isbn=978-1-84724-008-8|page=152}}
• Bernhard Riemann, a German mathematician, submits his habilitation thesis {{Lang|de|Ueber die Darstellbarkeit einer Function durch eine trigonometrische Reihe}} ("About the representability of a function by a trigonometric series"), in which he describes the Riemann integral. It is published by Richard Dedekind in 1867.{{cite web|url=http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Riemann/Trig/|title=Riemann's Habilitationsschrift|accessdate=2008-05-19|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080520085248/http://www.maths.tcd.ie/pub/HistMath/People/Riemann/Trig/|archivedate=2008-05-20|url-status=live}}

• April–May – Dr John Snow traces the source of one outbreak of cholera in London (which kills 500) to a single water pump, validating his theory that cholera is water-borne, and forming the starting point for epidemiology.
• November – Florence Nightingale and her team of trained volunteer nurses arrive at Selimiye Barracks in Scutari in the Ottoman Empire to care for British Army troops invalided from the Crimean War.{{cite web|last1=Baly|first1=Monica E.|authorlink1=Monica Baly|first2=H. C. G.|last2=Matthew|authorlink2=Colin Matthew|title=Nightingale, Florence (1820–1910)|work=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35241?docPos=2|accessdate=2011-06-20}} {{ODNBsub}}
• Spanish-born vocal pedagogist Manuel García observes his own functioning glottis using a form of laryngoscope incorporating mirrors.{{cite journal|last=Garcia|first=Manuel|title=Observations on the Human Voice|pages=399–410|volume=7|year=1855|jstor=111815|journal=Proceedings of the Royal Society of London|doi=10.1098/rspl.1854.0094|pmc=5180321}}{{cite journal|first=Teresa|last=Radomski|title=Manuel García (1805–1906): a bicentenary reflection|journal=Australian Voice|volume=11|pages=25–41|year=2005|format=PDF|url=http://www.harmonicorde.com/Radomski%20Australian%20Voice.pdf|accessdate=2012-02-07}}
• Claude Bernard introduces the term Milieu intérieur in physiology.

• Filippo Pacini, an Italian anatomist, discovers Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera.{{cite web|url=http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html |title=Who first discovered Vibrio cholera? |author=Frerichs, Ralph R. |date=2001-08-05 |publisher=UCLA School of Public Health |accessdate=30 December 2007 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080119141216/http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/snow/firstdiscoveredcholera.html |archivedate=19 January 2008 |url-status=live }} Pacini's 1854 publication was titled "Osservazioni microscopiche e deduzioni patologiche sul cholera asiático" ("Microscopical observations and pathological deductions on cholera").
• Louis Pasteur begins studying fermentation at the request of brewers.

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• May 9 – Albert Fink patents the Fink truss in the United States.{{cite journal|first=Frank|last=Griggs|title=The Inspirations of a German Immigrant: Albert Fink|url=http://bridgeworld.net/wordpress/archives/docs/20060522.pdf|journal=Structure|publisher=National Council of Structural Engineers Associations |pages=52–4|accessdate=2011-08-16|date=May 2006}}
• May 17 – Deck of Wheeling Suspension Bridge in the United States destroyed through torsional movement and vertical undulations in a severe windstorm.
• June 13 – Anthony Faas patents improvements to the accordion in the United States.Patent no. 11062.
• July – First voyage by a seagoing steamship fitted with a compound steam engine, the screw steamer Brandon, built on the River Clyde in Scotland by John Elder.{{cite book|url=http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/mlemen/mlemen031.htm|page=118|accessdate=2011-06-16|title=Memoirs and portraits of one hundred Glasgow men|chapter=John Elder, 1824-1869|year=1886|location=Glasgow|publisher=James MacLehose & Sons}}
• September 19 – Thaddeus Hyatt patents a practical pavement light.{{cite patent|inventor-last=Hyatt|inventor-first=Thaddeus|issue-date=1854-09-19.|title=[http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=11,695 Vault cover]|country=US|number=11695|url=http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=11,695}}
• November 27 – André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri patents a method of producing carte de visite photographs in France.
• December 20 – In the case of Talbot v. Laroche, pioneer of photography Henry Fox Talbot fails in asserting that the collodion process infringes his calotype patent.{{cite book|title=The Calotype Patent Lawsuit of Talbot v. Laroche 1854|author=Wood, R. D.|publisher=privately published|location=Bromley, Kent|year=1975|url=http://www.midleykent.fsnet.co.uk/laroche/TalbotvLaroche.htm|isbn=0-9504377-0-0|accessdate=2010-10-18|archive-date=2008-01-02|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080102053045/http://www.midleykent.fsnet.co.uk/laroche/TalbotvLaroche.htm|url-status=dead}}
• James Ambrose Cutting takes out three United States patents for improvements to the wet plate collodion process (Ambrotype photography).
• Elisha Otis completes work on the safety elevator.
• Joseph Whitworth patents polygonal rifling for ordnance in the United Kingdom.

• 10 June – The Crystal Palace reopens in Sydenham, South London{{cite book|title=Penguin Pocket On This Day|publisher=Penguin Reference Library|isbn=0-14-102715-0|year=2006}} with life-size dinosaur models in the grounds.

• Copley Medal: Johannes Peter Müller{{cite web |title=Copley Medal {{!}} British scientific award |url=https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |accessdate=23 July 2020 |language=en}}
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Richard John Griffith

• January 27 – George Alexander Gibson (died 1913), Scottish physician and geologist.
• January 29 – Fred Baker (died 1938), American physician and naturalist.
• February 9 – Aletta Jacobs (died 1929), Dutch physician and women's suffrage activist.
• March 4 – Napier Shaw (died 1945), English meteorologist.
• March 15 – Emil Adolf von Behring (died 1917), German physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901.
• March 31 – Dugald Clerk (died 1932), Scottish mechanical engineer.
• April 28 – Phoebe Marks, later Hertha Ayrton (died 1923), English electrical engineer.{{cite book|first=Catharine M. C.|last=Haines|title=International Women in Science: A Biographical Dictionary to 1950|location=Santa Barbara|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2001|isbn=978-1-57607-090-1|page=12}}
• April 29 – Henri Poincaré (died 1912), French mathematician.
• May 11 – Ottmar Mergenthaler (died 1899), German-born inventor.
• June 13 – Charles Algernon Parsons (died 1931), British inventor of the steam turbine.
• July 12 – George Eastman (suicide 1932), American photographic inventor.
• July 23 – Birt Acres (died 1918), American-born cinematographic inventor.
• July 28 – Victor Babeș (died 1926), Austrian-born Romanian physician and bacteriologist.
• October 3 – Hermann Struve (died 1920), Russian-born astronomer.

• January 16 – Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré (born 1789), French botanist.
• April 15 – Arthur Aikin (born 1773), English chemist and mineralogist.
• July 6 – Georg Ohm (born 1789), German physicist.
• September 28 – George Field (born c.1777), English colour chemist.
• October 27 – Golding Bird (born 1814), English physician.
• November 18 – Edward Forbes (born 1815), Manx naturalist.

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Category:19th century in science

Category:1850s in science