1583 in science

Botany

• Carolus Clusius publishes Rariorum stirpium per Pannonias observatorum Historiae, the earliest book on Alpine flora.

  Mathematics

• Thomas Fincke's Geometria rotundi is published, introducing the terms tangent and secant for trigonometric functions.
• Johann Thomas Freigius' Quaestiones geometricae et stereometricae Euclidis is published in Basel following his death from plague.

  Physiology and medicine

• Georg Bartisch's Ophthalmodouleia, Das ist Augendienst is published in Dresden, the first modern work on ophthalmology.

  Births

• February 23 – Jean-Baptiste Morin, French mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer

  Deaths

• December 31 – Thomas Erastus, Swiss physician and theologian