1899 in science

The year 1899 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• The 80 cm refracting telescope is completed at Potsdam Observatory.

Biology

• May 1 - The National Trust in the United Kingdom acquires its first part of Wicken Fen, making it the country's oldest wetland nature reserve.

Chemistry

• Actinium is discovered by Andre-Louis Debierne.

Mathematics

• David Hilbert publishes Grundlagen der Geometrie, proposing a formal set, Hilbert's axioms, to replace Euclid's elements.
• Georg Alexander Pick publishes his theorem on the area of simple polygons.^[1]

Medicine

• Bubonic plague enters Brazil through the seaport of Santos.
• March 6 - Felix Hoffmann patents Aspirin and Bayer registers its name as a trademark.
• October 2 - The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is established by Patrick Manson at the Albert Dock Seamen's Hospital.

Physics

• Ernest Rutherford classifies two types of radiation, alpha rays and beta rays.
• Henri Becquerel discovers that radiation from uranium consists of charged particles and can be deflected by magnetic fields.
• Hertha Ayrton becomes the first woman to read her own paper (on the electric arc) before the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London, of which soon afterwards she is elected the first female member.^[2]

Technology

• February 14 - Voting machines are approved by the U.S. Congress for use in federal elections.
• Hugo Lenz first demonstrates Lenz poppet valve gear, for stationary steam engines.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Lord Rayleigh
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Charles Lapworth

Births

• January 12 - Paul Hermann Müller (died 1965), chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1948.
• February 27 - Charles Best (died 1978), medical scientist.
• September 29 - László Bíró (died 1985), Hungarian inventor.

Deaths

• January 4 - Henry Alleyne Nicholson (born 1844), British palaeontologist and zoologist.
• February 18 - Sophus Lie (born 1842), Norwegian mathematician.
• March 18 - Othniel Charles Marsh (born 1831), paleontologist.
• August 9 - Edward Frankland (born 1825), English chemist.
• August 16 - Robert Bunsen (born 1811), German chemist, perfector of the bunsen burner.
• October 28 - Ottmar Mergenthaler (born 1854), German American inventor.

References