<!-- "none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see WP:SDNONE -->
The year 1678 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
- Edmund Halley publishes a catalogue of 341 southern stars—the first systematic southern sky survey.
Physics
- Christiaan Huygens publishes his Traité de la Lumière/Treatise on Light, which states his principle of wavefront sources.
- Robert Hooke publishes in full Hooke's law, the fundamental law of elasticity: stress (force) exerted is proportional to the strain (elongation) produced (ut tensio, sic vis ("as the extension, so the force" or "the extension is proportional to the force")).
Zoology
- Publication of English Spiders by Martin Lister, the first book devoted to spiders.
Births
- April 14 – Abraham Darby I, ironmaster (died 1717)
- July 16 – Jakob Hermann, mathematician (died 1733)
- October 27 – Pierre Raymond de Montmort, mathematician (died 1719)
- November 26 – Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, geophysicist (died 1771)
- December 2 – Nicolaas Kruik (Cruquius), cartographer and meteorologist (died 1754)
- unknown – Pierre Fauchard, physician and "father of modern dentistry" (died 1761)
Deaths
- November 28 – Willem Piso, physician and naturalist (born 1611)