1872 in science

• Robert Chesebrough patents Vaseline in the United StatesU.S. Patent 127,568.
• Eugen Baumann rediscovers polyvinyl chloride
• Charles-Adolphe Wurtz discovers the aldol reaction

• March 1 – Yellowstone National Park is established in the United States, the world's first national park{{cite web|title=Yellowstone, the First National Park |url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/yehtml/yeabout.html |accessdate=16 June 2011 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629122651/http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/yehtml/yeabout.html |archivedate=29 June 2011 |url-status=dead }}[http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/consrvbib:@field(NUMBER+@band(amrvl+vl002)) U.S. Statutes at Large, Vol. 17, Chap. 24, pp. 32-33. "An Act to set apart a certain Tract of Land lying near the Head-waters of the Yellowstone River as a public Park."] From The Evolution of the Conservation Movement, 1850-1920 collection, Library of Congress.

• December 21 – Challenger expedition: {{HMS|Challenger|1858}} sails from Portsmouth in England on the 4-year scientific expedition that lays the foundation for the science of oceanography{{cite book|last=Rice|first=A. L.|title=Understanding the Oceans: Marine Science in the Wake of HMS Challenger|location=London|publisher=Routledge|year=1999|pages=27–48|chapter=The Challenger Expedition|isbn=978-1-85728-705-9|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F5agn3NSzEoC&pg=PA27| accessdate= 8 May 2011 }}

• Richard Dedekind publishes Stetigkeit und irrationale Zahlen, a theory of irrational numbers{{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}}
• Felix Klein produces the Erlangen program on geometries

• February 15 – George Huntington makes the first detailed description of Huntington's disease, in Middleport, Ohio{{cite journal|last=Huntington|first= G.|title=On Chorea|url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Chorea|journal=Medical and Surgical Reporter of Philadelphia|volume=26|issue=15|date=1872-04-13|pages=317–321}}{{cite journal|last=Lanska|first=D. J.|title=George Huntington (1850–1916) and hereditary chorea|journal=Journal of the History of the Neurosciences|volume=9|issue=1|pages=76–89|year=2000|pmid=11232352|doi=10.1076/0964-704X(200004)9:1;1-2;FT076|s2cid=22659368}}{{cite journal|last1=Vale|first1=Thiago Cardoso|last2=Cardoso|first2=Francisco|title=Chorea: A journey through history|journal=Tremor and Other Hyperkinetic Movements|year=2015|volume=5|page=1–6|pmid=26056609|doi=10.7916/D8WM1C98|pmc=4454991}}
• Moritz Kaposi describes Kaposi's sarcoma{{cite journal|first=Moriz|last=Kaposi|title=Idiopathisches multiples Pigmentsarkom der Haut|year=1872|journal=Archiv für Dermatologie und Syphilis|volume=4|issue=2|pages=265–73|doi=10.1007/bf01830024|s2cid=31438763|url=https://zenodo.org/record/1428352}} Translated as: {{cite journal|title=Idiopathic Multiple Pigmented Sarcoma of the Skin|journal=CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians|volume=32|year=1982|pages=342–7|doi=10.3322/canjclin.32.6.342|issue=6|last1=Kaposi|first1=M.|doi-access=free}}{{cite web|url=http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/621.html|title=Moriz Kohn Kaposi|work=Whonamedit?|accessdate=2011-03-25}} and the manifestations of systemic lupus erythematosus
• Ferdinand Monoyer proposes the dioptre as a unit for measuring the optical power of a lens{{cite journal|last=Monoyer|first=F.|title=Sur l'introduction du système métrique dans le numérotage des verres de lunettes et sur le choix d'une unité de réfraction|journal=Annales d'Oculistiques|volume=68|page=101|year=1872}}

• Ludwig Boltzmann states the Boltzmann equation for the temporal development of distribution functions in phase space, and publishes his H-theorem{{cite book|title=Encyclopaedia of Physics|edition=2nd|year=1991}}

• April 2 – George Brayton obtains a United States patent for a constant pressure internal combustion engine, initially using vaporized gas, and marketed as 'Brayton's Ready Motor'.Improvement in Gas-Engines (Patent no. 125166).{{cite book|last=Borth|first=Christy|title=Masters of Mass Production|page=152|publisher=Bobbs-Merrill|location=Indianapolis|year=1945}}
• John Hopkinson proposes the group flash system for distinguishing lighthouses{{cite ODNB|first=T. H.|last=Beare|title=Hopkinson, John (1849–1898)|year=2004|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13758|accessdate=2011-06-02|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/13758}}
• Reverend C. M. Ramus of Sussex, England, devises the single-step hydroplane hull{{cite journal|title=The Evolution of the Hydroplane|url=http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1914/1914%20-%200796.html|journal=Flight|volume=6|page=796|date=1914-07-24|accessdate=2012-01-09}}

• October 1 – the Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College begins its first academic session
• The Polytechnic Museum in Moscow is founded{{cite web|publisher=Polytechnic Museum|url=http://eng.polymus.ru/?s=18&lvl=1|title=History}}

• May – the magazine Popular Science is first published in the United States
• Charles Darwin publishes The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

• Copley Medal: Friedrich Woehler{{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: James Dwight Dana

• April 5 – Samuel Cate Prescott (died 1962), American food scientist and microbiologist
• April 21 - Charles Gandy (died 1943), French physician.
• May 6 – Willem de Sitter (died 1934), Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer
• May 21 – Henry E. Warren (died 1957), American inventor
• May 31 – Charles Greeley Abbot (died 1973), American astrophysicist
• August 1 – Solomon Carter Fuller (died 1953), Liberian-born psychiatrist
• September 23 – Marie Depage (died in sinking of the RMS Lusitania 1915), Belgian nurse
• October 4 – Ernest Fourneau (died 1949), French medicinal chemist

• March 8 – Priscilla Susan Bury (born 1799), English botanist{{cite book|first=Bernard|last=Lightman|title=Dictionary Of Nineteenth-Century of British Scientists Vol.1|location=Bristol|publisher=Thoemmes|date=2004|page=356|isbn=978-1-85506-999-2}}
• April 2 – Samuel Morse (born 1791), American inventor
• May 6 – George Robert Gray (born 1808), English zoologist
• August 11 – Sir Andrew Smith (born 1797), Scottish-born military surgeon, explorer, ethnologist and zoologist
• August 22 – Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (born 1787), French physician
• November 7 – Alfred Clebsch (born 1833), German mathematician
• December 6 – Félix Archimède Pouchet (born 1800), French scientist
• December 24 – William John Macquorn Rankine (born 1820), Scottish physicist
• Anne Elizabeth Ball (born 1808), Irish psychologist

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Category:19th century in science

Category:1870s in science