1797 in science

Chemistry

• Smithson Tennant demonstrates that diamond is a pure form of carbon.
• Louis Nicolas Vauquelin discovers chromium.
• Joseph Proust proposes the law of definite proportions, which states that elements always combine in small, whole number ratios to form compounds.

  Mathematics

• Lagrange publishes his Théorie des fonctions analytiques.

  Physics

• Giovanni Battista Venturi describes the Venturi effect.

  Technology

• October 22 – André-Jacques Garnerin carries out the first descent using a frameless parachute, a drop from a balloon in Paris.

  Zoology

• Thomas Bewick publishes the first volume, Land Birds, of his History of British Birds.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: Not awarded

  Births

• January 3 – Frederick William Hope, British zoologist
• January 4 – Wilhelm Beer, Prussian astronomer
• February – Joseph-Alphonse Adhémar, French mathematician
• February 2 – Joseph Guislain, Flemish psychiatrist
• February 5 – Jean-Marie Duhamel, French mathematician and physicist
• March 10 – George Poulett Scrope, British geologist and economist
• March 21 – Johann Andreas Wagner, German paleontologist, zoologist and archeologist
• April 29 – George Don, Scottish botanist
• May 2 – Abraham Gesner, Canadian inventor of kerosene
• May 30 – Karl Friedrich Naumann, German geologist and mineralogist
• July 14 – James Scott Bowerbank, British naturalist, geologist and paleontologist
• July 26 – William Hutton, British geologist and paleontologist
• August 23 – Adhémar Jean Claude Barré de Saint-Venant, French mechanician and mathematician
• August 31 – James Ferguson, Scottish-born American astronomer
• September 1 – Augustin-Pierre Dubrunfaut, French chemist
• September 10 – Carl Gustaf Mosander, Swedish chemist
• September 17 – Heinrich Kuhl, German zoologist
• October 4 – Félix Savary, French astronomer
• October 5 – John Gardner Wilkinson, British egyptologist
• November 14 – Charles Lyell, Scottish geologist
• November 20 - Mary Buckland, British paleontologist and marine biologist
• December 3
• * Margaretta Morris, American entomologist
• * Andrew Smith, Scottish military surgeon, explorer, ethnologist and zoologist
• December 17 – Joseph Henry, American scientist
• December 23 – Adrien de Jussieu, French botanist

  Deaths

• March 16 – Cristina Roccati, Italian scholar in physics
• March 26 – James Hutton, Scottish geologist
• June 13 – Samuel-Auguste Tissot, Swiss physician
• August 29 – Joseph Wright, English painter of scientific subjects
• date unknown – Wang Zhenyi, Chinese Qing dynasty female astronomer and poet