1698 in science

Astronomy

• Christiaan Huygens, in his posthumously published book Kosmotheoros, argues that other planets in the solar system could contain extraterrestrial life, starting a debate that extends into the 21st century.

  Exploration

• November – HMS Paramour sets sail under the command of Edmond Halley on the first purely scientific voyage by an English naval vessel, to investigate magnetic declination.

  Technology

• January 11 – April 21 – Tsar Peter the Great of Russia visits England as part of his Grand Embassy, making a particular study of shipbuilding.
• July 25 – English engineer Thomas Savery obtains a patent for "A new invention for raising of water... by the impellent force of fire", a steam pump.
• November 14 – First Eddystone Lighthouse illuminated, the first rock lighthouse in Europe.
• The piano is invented by Italian Bartolomeo Cristofori, originally named the "piano et forte".
• A metronome is developed as a machine to measure musical tempo.

  Events

• November – Tani Jinzan, astronomer and calendar scholar, observes a fire destroy Tosa in Japan at the same time as a Leonid meteor shower, taking it as evidence to reinforce belief in the "Theory of Areas".

  Births

• February – Colin Maclaurin, Scottish mathematician
• February 16 – Pierre Bouguer, French mathematician
• March 26 – Václav Prokop Diviš, Czech theologian and natural scientist
• May 8 – Henry Baker, English naturalist
• July 17 – Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, French mathematician
• November 28 – Charlotta Frölich, Swedish agronomist

  Deaths

• November 4 – Rasmus Bartholin, Danish scientist