1821 in science

The year 1821 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

[edit] Astronomy

• Comet Encke is the second comet to be discovered to have a periodic orbit, after Comet Halley.
• Alexis Bouvard detects irregularities in the orbit of Uranus.

[edit] Exploration

• William Edward Parry starts his second voyage to find the Northwest Passage.

[edit] Geology

• Ignatz Venetz proposes his ice age theory.
• Pierre Berthier discovers bauxite.
• Mary Anning finds the first ever plesiosaur fossil at Lyme Regis.

[edit] Mathematics

• Augustin Louis Cauchy gives the first complete presentation of calculus using limits.

[edit] Paleontology

• William Buckland finds the remains of a hyena's den in Yorkshire, containing the bones of lions, elephants and rhinoceros.

[edit] Physics

• Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic rotation.
• Thomas Johann Seebeck discovers the thermoelectric effect.
• Augustin Fresnel shows that light is made up of a traverse wave motion.

[edit] Awards

• Copley Medal: Edward Sabine; John Herschel

[edit] Births

• May 16 - Pafnuty Chebyshev (d. 1894), mathematician.
• August 16 - Arthur Cayley (d. 1895), mathematician.
• August 31 - Hermann von Helmholtz (d. 1894), physicist.
• October 13 - Rudolf Virchow (d. 1902), biologist.
• November 18 - Franz Bronnow (d. 1891), astronomer.

[edit] Deaths

• April 20 - Franz Karl Achard (b. 1753), chemist.