1736 in science

Botany

• Charles Marie de La Condamine, with François Fresneau Gataudière, makes the first scientific observations of rubber, in Ecuador.

  Earth sciences

• June 19 – French Academy of Sciences expedition led by Pierre Louis Maupertuis, with Anders Celsius, begins work on measuring a meridian arc in the Torne Valley of Finland.

  Mathematics

• June 8 – Leonhard Euler writes to James Stirling describing the Euler–Maclaurin formula, providing a connection between integrals and calculus.
• Euler produces the first published proof of Fermat's "little theorem".
• Sir Isaac Newton's Method of Fluxions, describing his method of differential calculus, is first published and Thomas Bayes publishes a defense of its logical foundations against the criticism of George Berkeley.

  Medicine

• c. October – Winchester County Hospital, established by Prebendary Alured Clarke, the first voluntary general hospital in the English provinces, begins to function.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: John Theophilus Desaguliers

  Births

• January 19 – James Watt, Scottish mechanical engineer
• January 25 – Joseph Louis Lagrange, Piedmont-born mathematician
• June 14 – Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, French physicist
• August 19 – Erland Samuel Bring, Swedish mathematician
• November 3 – Christiaan Brunings, Dutch hydraulic engineer,n, j
• John Arnold, Cornish-born watchmaker

  Deaths

• September 16 – Gabriel Fahrenheit, physicist and engineer