1775 in science

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The year 1775 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Chemistry

• May 25 – Joseph Priestley's account of his isolation of oxygen in the form of a gas ("dephlogisticated air") is read to the Royal Society of London.
• Torbern Bergman's De attractionibus electivis ("A Dissertation on Elective Attractions") is published, containing the largest tables of chemical affinity ever published.

Exploration

• July 30 – 3-year second voyage of James Cook completed, the first eastabout global circumnavigation, during which the Antarctic Circle has been crossed three times, Terra Australis shown to be a myth, and Larcum Kendall's K1 chronometer demonstrated to be a reliable timekeeper for the purpose of calculating longitude.

Mathematics

• Lagrange's Recherches d'Arithmétique develops a general theory of binary quadratic forms.

Medicine

• English surgeon Percivall Pott finds the first occupational link to cancer, contributing to the science of epidemiology.
• German physician Melchior Adam Weikard anonymously publishes the textbook Der Philosophische Arzt including the earliest description of symptoms resembling attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Natural history

• February 21 – La Specola, Florence's Museum of Zoology and Natural History, opens to the public.
• Johan Christian Fabricius publishes his Systema entomologiæ.
• Peter Forsskål's Descriptiones Animalium: Avium, amphiborum, insectorum, vermium quæ in itinere orientali (containing early observations on bird migration) and Flora Ægyptiaco-Arabica sive descriptiones plantarum quas per Ægyptum Inferiorem et Arabiam felicem detexit are published posthumously, edited by Carsten Niebuhr.

Watt steam engine

Technology

• James Watt's 1769 steam engine patent is extended to June 1800 by Act of Parliament of Great Britain and the first engines are built under it.
• Jacques-Constantin Périer operates a paddle steamer on the Seine, but it proves to be underpowered.
• Thomas Crapper patents a flush toilet in London.
• Edinburgh confectioner Charles Spalding devizes improvements to the diving bell, adding a system of balance-weights.
• Pierre-Simon Girard, age 74, invents a water turbine.
• December 30 – John Arnold takes out his first patent for improvements in the construction of marine chronometers in Britain, including the first for a compensation balance.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Nevil Maskelyne

Births

• January 22 – André-Marie Ampère, French physicist (died 1836)
• February 9 – Farkas Bolyai, Hungarian mathematician (died 1856)
• May 10 – William Phillips, English geologist (died 1828)
• July 23 – Étienne-Louis Malus, French physicist and mathematician] (died 1812)
• September 30 – Robert Adrain, Irish-born mathematician (died 1843)
• November 19 – Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger, German entomologist and zoologist (died 1813)

Deaths

• March 3 – Richard Dunthorne, English astronomer (born 1711)
• October 25 – Johan Maurits Mohr, Dutch astronomer (born 1716)