1850 in science

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The year 1850 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

• May 25 – The young hippopotamus Obaysch arrives at London Zoo from Egypt, the first seen in Europe since Roman times.

Chemistry

• October 17 – James Young patents a method of distilling kerosene from coal.
• Rev. Levi Hill invents a color photography process, "heliochromy", capable of basic rendering of reds and blues.

Mathematics

• Thomas Kirkman proposes Kirkman's schoolgirl problem.
• J. J. Sylvester originates the term matrix in mathematics.

Medicine

• March – Dr Benjamin Guy Babington founds the London Epidemiological Society.
• Central Criminal Lunatic Asylum for Ireland opened in Dundrum, Dublin, the first secure hospital in Europe.

Meteorology

• April 3 – British Meteorological Society founded.

Physics

• May – John Tyndall and Hermann Knoblauch publish a report on "The magneto-optic properties of crystals, and the relation of magnetism and diamagnetism to molecular arrangement".
• Rudolf Clausius publishes his paper on the mechanical theory of heat, which first states the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics.
• Hippolyte Fizeau and E. Gounelle measure the speed of electricity.
• Léon Foucault demonstrates the greater speed of light in air than in water, and establishes that the speed of light in different media is inverse to the refractive indices of the media, using the Fizeau-Foucault apparatus.

Technology

• July 14 – John Gorrie makes the first public demonstration of his ice-making machine, in Apalachicola, Florida.
• Completion of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris to the design of Henri Labrouste, the first major public building with an exposed cast-iron frame.

Institutions

• Astronomer Maria Mitchell becomes the first woman member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• The University of Oxford establishes an Honour School (i.e. an undergraduate course) in Natural Science.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Peter Andreas Hansen
• Wollaston Medal: William Hopkins

Births

• January 5 – Sidney Browne (died 1941), military nurse.
• January 15 – Sofia Kovalevskaya (died 1891), mathematician.
• January 24 – Hermann Ebbinghaus (died 1909), psychologist.
• January 29 – Edmond Nocard (died 1903), French veterinarian and microbiologist.
• February 15 – Sophie Bryant (died 1922), mathematician and educationalist.
• March 31 – Charles Walcott (died 1927), paleontologist.
• May 18 – Oliver Heaviside (died 1925), physicist.
• May 23 – George Claridge Druce (died 1932), botanist.
• June 6 – Karl Ferdinand Braun (died 1918), physicist.
• August 25 – Charles Richet (died 1935), Nobel Prize winner.

Deaths

• March 27 – Wilhelm Beer (born 1797), astronomer.
• April 9 – William Prout (born 1785), chemist.
• May 10 – Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (born 1778), chemist and physicist.
• December 4 – William Sturgeon (born 1783), inventor.