Overview of the events of 1886 in science
The year 1886 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
Astronomy
Chemistry
Exploration
History of science
Mathematics
Medicine
Metallurgy
Physics
Technology
- July 3 – Ottmar Mergenthaler's Linotype machine is introduced at the New-York Tribune.
- August 13 – Romanian inventor Alexandru Ciurcu and French journalist Just Buisson [fr] demonstrate a reaction engine, used to power a boat. On December 16 a second engine explodes, killing Buisson.
- September 21 – William Stanley, Jr. patents the induction coil in the United States, the first practical alternating current transformer device.
- October 31 – Opening of Dom Luís Bridge, Porto, a two-hinged double-deck arch bridge across the Douro River in Portugal designed by Téophile Seyrig. Its main span of 172 metres (564 ft) will remain the world's longest in iron.
- December 28 – Josephine Cochrane patents the first commercially successful automatic dishwasher in the United States.
- Gottlieb Daimler produces the first motorboat, Neckar, in Germany.
- The Lebel Model 1886 rifle is developed in France, the first military firearm to use smokeless powder ammunition.
- Auguste Mustel invents the celesta.
- Herbert Akroyd Stuart produces his first prototype heavy oil engines, in England.
- Schuyler Wheeler produces the first electric fan, in the United States.
Awards
Births
- January 28 – Hidetsugu Yagi, Japanese electrical engineer (died 1976)
- March 7 – G. I. Taylor, English physicist (died 1975)
- March 8 – Edward Calvin Kendall, American biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1972)
- April 5 – Frederick Lindemann, German-born British physicist (died 1957)
- May 22 – Hermann Stieve, German anatomist and histologist (died 1952)
- June 7 – Henri Coandă, Romanian aeronautical engineer (died 1972)
- June 18 – Tsuruko Haraguchi, born Tsuru Arai, Japanese psychologist (died 1915)
- July 6 – Ronald Hatton, English pomologist (died 1965)
- July 30 – Muthulakshmi Reddi, Indian physician and social reformer (died 1968)
- September 26 – Archibald Hill, English physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1977)
- November 20 – Karl von Frisch, Austrian ethologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 1982)
- December 9 – Clarence Birdseye, American founder of the modern frozen food industry (died 1956)
Deaths
- February 25 – Lady Katherine Sophia Kane, Irish botanist (born 1811)
- March 15 – Anastasie Fătu, Moldavian and Romanian physician and naturalist (born 1816)
- July 1 – Otto Wilhelm Hermann von Abich, German mineralogist and geologist (born 1806)
- August 17 – Aleksandr Butlerov, Russian chemist (born 1828)
- November 14 – Alexandre-Emile Béguyer de Chancourtois, French mineralogist and geologist (born 1820).
- November 25 – Richard Maack, Russian naturalist, geographer, and anthropologist (born 1825)
- September 18 – Sampson Gamgee, English surgeon (born 1828).
- December 26 – Theodor von Oppolzer, Austrian astronomer (born 1841)