1676 in science

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The year 1676 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• Danish astronomer Ole Rømer measures the speed of light by observing the eclipses of Jupiter's moons, obtaining a speed of 140,000 miles per second (approximately 25% too slow).
• Summer – The Royal Greenwich Observatory, designed by Christopher Wren, is completed.

Biology

• Antony Van Leeuwenhoek discovers bacteria, observed with the microscope.
• Francis Willughby's Ornithologiae is published by John Ray, the foundation of scientific ornithology.

Medicine

• William Briggs publishes an anatomy of the eye (the first in England), Ophthalmographia, at Cambridge.

Paleontology

• The first fossilised bone of what is now known to be a dinosaur is discovered in England by Robert Plot, the femur of a Megalosaurus from a limestone quarry at Cornwell near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire.

Technology

• July 7 – The first clocks using a form of deadbeat escapement, constructed by Thomas Tompion to a design by Richard Towneley, are installed at the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

Births

• May 28 – Jacopo Riccati, Italian mathematician (died 1754)
• Caleb Threlkeld, Irish botanist (died 1728)

Deaths

• May 25 – Johann Rahn, Swiss mathematician (born 1622)
• September 4 – John Ogilby, English cartographer (born 1600)