The year 1702 in
science and
technology involved some significant events.
Astronomy
* April 20 –
Comet of 1702 (
C/1702 H1): The 10th-closest comet approach in history, it missed Earth by a distance of 0.0437
AU (6,537,000 km).
*
David Gregory publishes the first textbook, ''Astronomiae physicae et geometricae elementa'', the first
astronomy textbook based on
Isaac Newton's principles of motions and theory of gravitation.
Technology
* A
fountain pen was developed by Frenchman M. Bion. (
Nicolas Bion (1652–1733) described a fountain pen in a treatise published in 1709; he did not claim to have invented them nor is there any evidence that he made them.)
*
Pierre Varignon
Pierre Varignon (1654 – 23 December 1722) was a French mathematician. He was educated at the Jesuit College and the University of Caen, where he received his M.A. in 1682. He took Holy Orders the following year.
Varignon gained his first ex ...
applies
calculus to spring-driven clocks.
Births
* November 5 –
Edward Stone,
English polymath (died
1768
Events
January–March
* January 9 – Philip Astley stages the first modern circus, with acrobats on galloping horses, in London.
* February 11 – Samuel Adams's circular letter is issued by the Massachusetts House of Rep ...
)
[ ]
* Undated
**
Giuseppa Barbapiccola, Italian natural philosopher, poet and translator (died
1740
Events
January–March
* January 8 – All 237 crewmen on the Dutch East India Company ship ''Rooswijk'' are drowned, when the vessel strikes the shoals of Goodwin Sands, off of the coast of England, as it is beginning its secon ...
)
**
Benjamin Stillingfleet, English botanist (died
1771
Events January– March
* January 5 – The Great Kalmyk (Torghut) Migration is led by Ubashi Khan, from the east bank of the Lower Volga River back to the homeland of Dzungaria, at this time under Qing Dynasty rule.
* January 9 ...
)
Deaths
* April –
Clopton Havers
Clopton Havers (24 February 1657 – April 1702) was an English physician who did pioneering research on the microstructure of bone. He is believed to have been the first person to observe and almost certainly the first to describe what are no ...
, English physician who did pioneering research on the microstructure of bone (born
1657
Events
January–March
* January 8 – Miles Sindercombe and his group of disaffected Levellers are betrayed, in their attempt to assassinate Oliver Cromwell, by blowing up the Palace of Whitehall in London, and arrested.
* Febru ...
)
* December 12 –
Olof Rudbeck
Olaus Rudbeck (also known as Olof Rudbeck the Elder, to distinguish him from his son, and occasionally with the surname Latinized as ''Olaus Rudbeckius'') (13 September 1630 – 12 December 1702) was a Swedish scientist and writer, professor o ...
, Swedish physiologist who discovered that the thoracic duct is connected to the intestinal lymphatics (born
1630
Events
January–March
* January 2 – A shoemaker in Turin is found to have the first case of bubonic plague there as the plague of 1630 begins spreading through Italy.
* January 5 – A team of Portuguese military advisers ...
)
References
{{Reflist
18th century in science
1700s in science