1701 in science

Earth sciences

• Edmond Halley's General Chart of the Variation of the Compass is first published, the first to show magnetic declination and the first on which isogonic, or Halleyan, lines appear.

  Medicine

• Italian physician Giacomo Pylarini inoculates children with smallpox in Constantinople, in hopes of preventing more serious smallpox sickness when the children are older, thus becoming the first immunologist.

  Physics

• Joseph Sauveur coins the French word acoustique, from which the English word acoustics is derived.

  Technology

• The seed drill, invented by Jethro Tull, allows farmers to sow seeds in well-spaced rows at specific depths.
• Sir Isaac Newton, reporting to the British Royal Society, describes creation of a liquid-in-glass thermometer that is 3 ft long and has a two-inch diameter bulb using linseed oil.

  Births

• January 28 – Charles Marie de La Condamine, French geographer
• May 14 – William Emerson, English mathematician
• November 27 – Anders Celsius, Swedish astronomer, physicist, and mathematician
• Approximate date
• * Thomas Bayes, English mathematician
• * Henry Hindley, English clock and scientific instrument maker

  Deaths