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thumb|right|Frontispiece of the book Regimiento de Navegación by Andrés García os Céspedes, published in 1606.

The year 1606 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Cryptography

  • The cryptographic text Steganographia, written by Johannes Trithemius c.1499/1500, is published in Frankfurt.

Exploration

  • February 26
  • Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon makes the first confirmed sighting of Australia by a European.
  • Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the Pitcairn Islands.
  • March – The Dutch ship Duyfken, under Captain Willem Janszoon, explores the western coast of Cape York Peninsula.
  • May – Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the islands of Vanuatu; believing them to be Australia, he names them '.
  • October – Luís Vaz de Torres is the first European to sail through the Torres Strait.

Mathematics

  • Giovanni Antonio Magini devises trigonometric tables of high accuracy.

Physics

  • Approx. date – Galileo invents a thermometer based on the expansion of gas.

Technology

  • The first recorded instance of a bayonet published in the Chinese military treatise .

Births

  • January 4 (bapt.) – Edmund Castell, English orientalist (died 1685)

Deaths

  • September 28 – Nicolaus Taurellus, German philosopher and scientist (born 1547)
  • November 13 – Girolamo Mercuriale, Italian physician and historian (born 1530)
  • Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, Dutch nautical chart maker (born 1533/4)

References