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The year 1887 in science and technology involved many significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

  • April – Carte du Ciel project initiated by Paris Observatory director Amédée Mouchez.
  • Theodor von Oppolzer's Canon der Finsternisse, a compilation of the 8,000 solar and 5,200 lunar eclipses from 1200 BC until 2161 AD, is published posthumously.

Biology

  • Jean Pierre Mégnin publishes Faune des Tombeaux ("Fauna of the Tombs"), the founding work of modern forensic entomology.
  • Sergei Winogradsky discovers the first known form of lithotrophy during his research with Beggiatoa.
  • The Petri dish is created by German bacteriologist Julius Richard Petri.

Chemistry

  • Amphetamine is first synthesized in Germany by Romanian chemist Lazăr Edeleanu, who names it phenylisopropylamine.
  • Otto Schott produces 'Normalthermometerglas' (family of Borosilicate glass) for the first time. <!--- 1886/87 --->

Cartography

  • Guyou hemisphere-in-a-square projection developed by Émile Guyou.

Climate

  • January 28 – In a snowstorm at Fort Keogh, Montana, in the United States, the largest snowflakes on record are reported. They are 15&nbsp;inches (38&nbsp;cm) wide and 8&nbsp;inches (20&nbsp;cm) thick.
  • September 28 – Start of the Yellow River floods in China: 900,000 dead.

Conservation

  • June 23 – The Rocky Mountains Park Act becomes law in Canada, creating that nation's first national park, Banff National Park.

Earth sciences

  • February 23 – The French Riviera is hit by a large earthquake, killing around 2,000 along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
  • In Hawaii, the Mauna Loa volcano eruptions subside, having begun in 1843. During the 1887 eruption, about 2½ million tons (2.3 million metric tons) of lava per hour pours out, covering an area of 29&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>.

Linguistics

thumb|upright=0.5|[[Anne Sullivan]]

  • March 3 – Anne Sullivan begins to teach language to the deaf and blind Helen Keller.
  • July 26 – L. L. Zamenhof publishes Lingvo internacia ("International language") under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto".

Mathematics

  • Joseph Louis François Bertrand rediscovers Bertrand's ballot theorem.
  • Henri Poincaré provides a solution to the three-body problem.
  • The Schröder–Bernstein theorem in set theory is first published by Georg Cantor (without proof) and (on July 11) first proved by Richard Dedekind (without publication).

Medicine

  • January 11 – Louis Pasteur's anti-rabies treatment is defended in the French Academy of Medicine by Dr. Joseph Grancher.
  • August – The U.S. National Institutes of Health is founded at the Marine Hospital, Staten Island, NY, as the Laboratory of Hygiene.
  • October 1 – Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese founded by Patrick Manson.
  • Paediatrician Samuel Gee gives the first modern-day description of coeliac disease in children in a lecture at Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children in London.>
  • Surgeon Franz König publishes "Über freie Körper in den Gelenken" in the journal Deutsche Zeitschrift für Chirurgie, first describing (and naming) the disease Osteochondritis dissecans.
  • The Hospitals Association establishes the first (non-statutory and voluntary) register of nurses in the United Kingdom.

Physics

thumb|upright=0.5|[[Heinrich Hertz]]

  • November – The Michelson–Morley experiment is performed, indicating that the speed of light is independent of motion.
  • Heinrich Hertz discovers the photoelectric effect on the production and reception of electromagnetic waves in radio, an important step towards the understanding of the quantum nature of light.

Psychology

  • November – G. Stanley Hall founds The American Journal of Psychology.
  • Richard Hodgson and S. J. Davey, in the course of investigations into popular belief in parapsychology, publish one of the first descriptions of eyewitness unreliability.

Technology

  • March 8 – Everett Horton of Connecticut patents a fishing rod of telescoping steel tubes.
  • March 13 – Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs.
  • June 8 – Herman Hollerith receives a U.S. patent for his punched card calculator.
  • July – James Blyth operates the first working wind turbine at Marykirk in Scotland.
  • July 19 – Dorr Eugene Felt receives the first U.S. patent for his comptometer.
  • August – Anna Connelly patents a fire escape.
  • October 18 – Jacob Fitzgerald and William H. Silver are granted a U.S. patent for a "potato masher and fruit crusher", a form of potato ricer.
  • November 8 – Emile Berliner is granted a U.S. patent for his Gramophone.
  • Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick invents the contact lens, made of a type of brown glass.
  • English engineer James Atkinson invents his "Cycle Engine".
  • Mexican general Manuel Mondragón patents the Mondragón rifle, the world's first automatic rifle.
  • Alfred Yarrow completes the first practical high-pressure water-tube Yarrow boiler, for a torpedo boat.

Organizations

  • March 7 – North Carolina State University is established as North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.
  • October 3 – Florida A&M University opens its doors in Tallahassee, Florida.

Publications

  • Publication in Barcelona of Enrique Gaspar's El anacronópete, the first work of fiction to feature a time machine.

Awards

  • June – William Armstrong created 1st Baron Armstrong of Cragside, the first engineer to be raised to the Peerage of the United Kingdom
  • Copley Medal: Joseph Dalton Hooker
  • Wollaston Medal for Geology: John Whitaker Hulke

Births

  • January 7 – Kurt Schneider (died 1967), German psychiatrist.
  • January 15 – Henry Fairfield Osborn, Jr. (died 1969), American conservationist.
  • January 28 – Edmund Jaeger (died 1983), American naturalist.
  • April 20 – Margaret Newton (died 1971), Canadian plant pathologist.
  • June 22 – Julian Huxley (died 1975), English biologist and populariser of science.
  • July 30 – Felix Andries Vening Meinesz (died 1966), Dutch geophysicist.
  • August 18 – Erwin Schrödinger (died 1961), Austrian physicist.
  • September 26 – Barnes Wallis (died 1979), English aeronautical engineer.
  • October 11 – María Teresa Ferrari (died 1956), Argentine physician.
  • November 10 – Elisa Leonida Zamfirescu (died 1973), Romanian engineer.
  • November 19 – James B. Sumner (died 1955), American winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
  • November 23 – Henry Moseley (killed 1915), English physicist.
  • November 25 (November 13 Old Style) – Nikolai Vavilov (died 1943), Russian plant pathologist.
  • December 13 – George Pólya (died 1985), Hungarian mathematician.
  • December 22 – Srinivasa Ramanujan (died 1920), Indian mathematician.
  • December 27 – Edward Andrade (died 1971), English physicist.

Deaths

  • January 22 – Joseph Whitworth (born 1803), English mechanical engineer.
  • February 26 – Anandi Gopal Joshi (born 1865), Indian physician.
  • July 17 – Henry William Ravenel (born 1814), American botanist.
  • July 18 – Dorothea Dix (born 1802), American mental health reformer.
  • August 2 – Joseph-Louis Lambot (born 1814), French inventor of ferrocement.
  • August 15 – Julius von Haast (born 1824), German geologist.
  • August 19
  • Spencer Fullerton Baird (born 1823), American ornithologist and ichthyologist.
  • Alvan Clark (born 1804), American telescope manufacturer.
  • October 7 (O.S. September 25) – Lev Tsenkovsky (born 1822), Russian biologist.
  • October 17 – Gustav Kirchhoff (born 1824), German physicist.
  • November 18 – Gustav Fechner (born 1801), German psychologist.

References