History of Physics and Astronomy

1800 AD to 1849 AD

This section shows the important events in Physics and Astronomy from 1800 AD until 1849 AD. The names of people are highlighted in blue, important people are in bold blue.

1800 Atomic theory - Dalton
1800 Infra red radiation - Herschel
1800 Voltaic pile
1801 Ceres discovered – first minor planet - Piazzi
1801 Electric arc – Humphrey Davy
1801 Newtonian bending of light by the Sun predicted – Johann von Soldner
1801 Ultra violet - Ritter
1801-1803 Young's slits
1801-1892 Airy
1802 Double stars are bodies in mutual orbit - William Herschel,
1802 Gay Lussac – work on Charles' Law
1802 Pallas - second asteroid discovered - Heinrich Olbers
1802 Steam boat – first successful one made
1802-1875 Wheatstone
1803-1853 Doppler
1804 Dalton's law of partial pressures
1804 Hope's apparatus – liquid expansion
1804- 1864 Lenz
1806 Transit circle – Groombridge – mapped 4000 stars
1807 Colour theory – three colour theory of vision
1807 Slave trade abolished
1807 Vesta - third asteroid discovered - Heinrich Olbers
1808 Polarisation by reflection – Etienne Malus
1808 Sound – speed of sound in solids – Biot
1809- 1882 Darwin
1811-1899 Bunsen
1812 Decomposition of waves, harmonic analysis – Fourier
1813-1885 Andrews
1814 Photography
1814 Spectroscope - Joseph von Fraunhofer
1814-1824 Fraunhofer lines
1814-1874 Angstrφm
1815 Brewster's Law
1815 Davy lamp
1815 Interference – rediscovered by Fresnel
1816 Diffraction – Fresnel theory of diffraction
1816 Photoelastic effect - Brewster
1817 Kater's pendulum
1817 Real coefficient of expansion – du Long and Petit
1817 Stirling engine patented
1818-1889 Joule
1819 Du Long and Petit's Law
1819-1868 Foucault
1819-1896 Fizeau
1819-1903 Stokes
1820 Deflection of magnet by current – Oersted
1820 Electromagnets - Sturgeon
1820 Royal Astronomical Society founded
1821 Electric motor - Faraday
1821 Seebeck effect - thermocouple
1821-1894 Helmholtz
1822 Prototype calculating machine - Charles Babbage
1822 Sound – speed of sound - Arago
1822 Two wires carrying an electric current attract - Andre Ampere
1822-1888 Clausius
1823 Ampere's theorem
1823 Olbers' paradox – why is the sky dark?
1824 Carnot cycle
1824 Electromagnetic induction
1824 Silicon identified – Jφns Jacob Berzelius
1824- 1887 Kirchhoff
1824-1907 Kerr
1824- 1910 Huggins
1825 Stockton to Darlington railway
1825-1898 Balmer
1826 Light sensitivity of silver bromide
1826 Ohm's Law
1826-1911 Stoney
1827 Brownian motion first observed
1827 University College London founded
1828 Potential in electricity – Green
1828 Thorium discovered – Berzelius (1829?)
1829 Graham's gas diffusion law
1829 Inductance – self and mutual – Henry
1829 Nicol prism
1830 Thermopile – Nobili and Melloni
1831 Capillarity – theory of capillarity – Poisson
1831 Dynamo – Faraday
1831-1879 Maxwell
1832 Absolute units – Gauss
1832 Electrolysis – Faraday's laws
1832-1919 Crookes
1833 Self inductance - Joseph Henry (paper published)(discovered ?1829)
1833 Wheatstone Bridge – Christie
1834 Electric motor – Jacobi
1834 Entropy idea proposed Clapeyron
1834 Lenz's law
1834 Thermo-electric effect – Peltier
1834-1907 Mendeleev
1835 Coriolis force - Gustav-Gaspard Coriolis
1835-1893 Stefan
1836 Galvanometer – moving coil
1837 Lloyd's mirror
1837 Tangent galvanometer – Pouillet
1837-1923 Van der Waals
1838 Oliver Twist published
1838 Parallax measurement of distance of 61 Cygni – Bessel, Henderson, Struve
1838-1916 Mach
1839 Gravitation – inverse square law measurement
1839 Grove cell
1839 Photoelectricity
1839-1882 Leclanche
1839-1894 Kundt
1839-1903 Gibbs
1840 Chemical deposition of silver for mirrors
1840 Rosse – six foot reflector
1841 Potentiometer – Poggendorff
1841 Uranium – isolation by Eugene-Melchoir Peligot
1841-1902 Cornu (Cornu's spiral)
1842 Doppler effect
1842 Mayer – forerunner of Joule's experiment
1842-1912 Reynolds
1842-1919 Rayleigh
1843 First mechanical programmable calculator - Howard Aiken
1844- 1906 Boltzmann
1845 Joule-Kelvin experiment
1845 Polarisation – rotation of plane of polarisation in a magnetic field
1845-1923 Rontgen
1846 Carbon arc lighting in Paris opera house
1846 Neptune discovered Adams and Leverrier, Johanne Galle
1847 Communist manifesto published – Karl Marx
1847 Conservation of energy principle
1847 Mechanical equivalent of heat – Joule
1848 Absolute temperature scale - William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)
1848-1901 Rowland
1849 Haidinger fringes
1849 Light – speed of light measurement – Fizeau – toothed wheel