1755 in science

List of years in science (table)
... 1745 1746 1747 1748 1749 1750 1751 ... 1752 1753 1754 1755 1756 1757 1758 ... 1759 1760 1761 1762 1763 1764 1765 ...
Art Archaeology Architecture Literature Music Philosophy Science +...

The year 1755 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• Immanuel Kant develops the nebular hypothesis in his Universal Natural History and Theory of Heaven (Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels).

Chemistry

• Joseph Black describes his discovery of carbon dioxide ("fixed air") and magnesium in a paper to the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh.

File:Plymouth-England-Eddystone-Lighthouse-2-wooden-1709-1755-free.gif

December 2: Fire burns second Eddystone Lighthouse, Rudyerd's wooden cone of 1709.

Earth sciences

• November 1 – An earthquake in Lisbon kills 30,000 inhabitants.
• Publication of De Litteraria expeditione per pontificiam ditionem ad dimetiendos duos meridiani gradus a PP, a description of the measurement of a meridian arc carried out in the Papal States by Ruđer Bošković with Christopher Maire in 1750–52.

Mathematics

• Leonhard Euler's Institutiones calculi differentialis is published.

Technology

• December 2 – The second Eddystone Lighthouse (1709–1755), with a wooden cone, catches fire and burns to the ground; it will be rebuilt in stone.
• While serving as Postmaster General of the northern American colonies, Benjamin Franklin invents a simple odometer, attached to his horse carriage, to help analyze the best routes for delivering the mail.
• approx. date – Thomas Mudge invents the lever escapement for timepieces.

Awards

• Copley Medal: John Huxham

Births

• January 28 – Samuel Thomas von Sömmerring, Prussian physician, anatomist, paleontologist and inventor (died 1830).
• April 11 – James Parkinson, English surgeon (died 1824).
• June 15 – Antoine François, French chemist (died 1809)
• October 11 – Fausto Elhuyar, Spanish chemist (died 1833).
• October 28 – Jacques Labillardière, French naturalist (died 1834).
• Maria Elizabetha Jacson, English botanist (died 1829).

Deaths

• May 20 – Johann Georg Gmelin, botanist, natural historian and geographer (born 1709)