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The year 1811 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

  • March 25 – Great Comet discovered by Honoré Flaugergues.

Biology

  • Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger publishes Prodromus systematis mammalium et avium, an updating of Linnean taxonomy and a major influence on the concept of the 'Family' in biological taxonomy. He first defines the infraclass Marsupialia.
  • Peter Simon Pallas begins publication of Zoographia rosso-Asiatica, sistens omnium animalium in extenso Imperio rossico, et adjacentibus maribus observatorum recensionem, domicilia, mores et descriptiones, anatomen atque icones plurimorum in Saint Petersburg.

Chemistry

  • Bernard Courtois discovers iodine.
  • Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thénard publish Recherches Physico-Chimiques, faites sur la pile; sur la préparation chimique et les propriétés du potassium et du sodium; sur la décomposition de l'acide boracique; sur les acides fluorique, muriatique et muriatique oxigéné; sur l'action chimique de la lumière; sur l'analyse végétale et animale, etc. in Paris.
  • Amedeo Avogadro proposes Avogadro's law, that equal volumes of gases under constant temperature and pressure contain equal number of molecules.

Earth sciences

  • June 10 &ndash; A volcanic eruption, observed from British sloop , briefly creates Sabrina Island (Azores).

Mathematics

  • Carl Friedrich Gauss works with functions of complex number variables.
  • S. D. Poisson publishes Traité de mécanique (vol. 1).

Medicine

  • Charles Bell publishes An Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain, starting to distinguish between sensory and motor nerves.
  • Abraham Colles publishes A Treatise on Surgical Anatomy in Dublin.
  • Francis Place publishes Illustrations and Proofs of the Principles of Population, including an examination of the proposed remedies of Mr. Malthus, and a reply to the objections of Mr. Godwin and others in London, the first significant text in English to advocate contraception.

Paleontology

  • Mary Anning discovers the fossilised remains of an Ichthyosaur at Lyme Regis.

Physics

  • Amedeo Avogadro proposes his hypothesis relating volumes and numbers of molecules of gases.

Technology

  • Friedrich Koenig, with the assistance of Andreas Friedrich Bauer, produces the first steam rotary printing press, in London.

Awards

  • Copley Medal: Benjamin Brodie

Births

  • March 2 – Hugh Edwin Strickland, English geologist and ornithologist (died 1853)
  • March 11
  • Lady Katherine Sophia Kane née Baily, Irish botanist (died 1886)
  • Urbain Le Verrier, French astronomer (died 1877)
  • March 30 – Robert Bunsen, German chemist (died 1899)
  • July 13 – James Young, Scottish chemist (died 1883)
  • September 14 – William Budd, English physician and epidemiologist (died 1880)
  • October 25 – Évariste Galois, French mathematician (died 1832)
  • John Waterston, Scottish physicist and civil engineer (died 1883)

Deaths

  • February 9 – Nevil Maskelyne, English Astronomer Royal (born 1732)
  • August 31 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French explorer (born 1729)
  • September 8 – Peter Simon Pallas, German-born naturalist (born 1741)

References