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The year 1720 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

  • February 10 – Edmond Halley is appointed as Astronomer Royal of England.

Medicine

  • May – First patient admitted to the Westminster Public Infirmary, predecessor of St George's Hospital, London.
  • Dr Steevens' Hospital is established at Kilmainham, Dublin.
  • Great Plague of Marseille, the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Europe.
  • English physician Richard Mead publishes A Short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Method to be used to prevent it.

Physics

  • Willem 's Gravesande publishes Physices elementa mathematica, experimentis confirmata, sive introductio ad philosophiam Newtonianam, an introduction to Newtonian physics, in Leiden.

Technology

  • A theodolite is developed by Jonathan Sisson of England.
  • Pinchbeck is invented by English watchmaker Christopher Pinchbeck; it is an alloy of 83% copper and 17% zinc, creating a strong, hard-wearing metal which has the appearance and weight of 20 carat gold.
  • An early chronograph is invented which has only mechanical parts in it.
  • Henry de Saumarez (of the Channel Islands) produces an instrument called the Marine Surveyor intended to measure a ship's velocity.
  • A single-action five-pedal harp is developed by Jacob Hochbrucker of Bavaria which can raise the pitch of the selected strings by a half step.
  • approx. date – Joseph Williamson uses a differential gear in a clock.

Births

  • January 30 – Charles De Geer, Swedish industrialist and entomologist (died 1778)
  • March 13 – Charles Bonnet, Genevan naturalist and philosophical writer (died 1793)
  • July 18 – Gilbert White, English naturalist (died 1793)
  • October 8 &ndash; Geneviève Thiroux d'Arconville, French novelist, translator and chemist (d. 1805)
  • November 5 – Jean Baptiste Christophore Fusée Aublet, French pharmacist and botanist (died 1778)
  • December ? – James Hargreaves, English inventor (died 1778)
  • approx. date – Dmitry Ivanovich Vinogradov, Russian chemist and (died 1758)

Deaths

  • December 29 – Maria Margarethe Kirch, German astronomer (born 1670)
  • David Gregory, Scottish physician and inventor (born 1625)

References