1712 in science

Astronomy

• John Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis is first published, against his will and without credit by Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley with the influence of John Arbuthnot.

  Mathematics

• Seki Takakazu's discovery of what become known as Bernoulli numbers is first published in his posthumous Katsuyo Sanpō.
• Giacomo F. Maraldi experimentally obtains the angle in the rhombic dodecahedron shape, which becomes known as the Maraldi angle.

  Technology

• The first known working Newcomen steam engine is built by Thomas Newcomen with John Calley to pump water out of mines in the Black Country of England.

  Births

• March 8 – John Fothergill, English physician
• March 27 – Claude Bourgelat, French veterinary surgeon
• undated
• * Angélique du Coudray, French pioneer of modern midwifery
• * Bartholomew Mosse, Irish surgeon

  Deaths

• February 2 – Martin Lister, English naturalist
• March 25 – Nehemiah Grew, English naturalist
• August 29 – Gregory King, English statistician
• September 14 – Giovanni Cassini, Italian-born astronomer