1807 in science

Astronomy

• March 29 – H. W. Olbers discovers the asteroid which Carl Friedrich Gauss names Vesta.

  Chemistry

• Potassium and sodium are isolated by Sir Humphry Davy.
• The use of fulminate in firearms is patented by the Rev. Alexander John Forsyth of Scotland.

  Geology

• The Geological Society is founded in London; among the more prominent founders are William Babington, James Parkinson, Humphry Davy and George Bellas Greenough.

  Mathematics

• William Wallace proves that any two simple polygons of equal area are equidecomposable, later known as the Bolyai–Gerwien theorem.

  Medicine

• Samuel Hahnemann first introduces the term 'homeopathy' in an essay, "Indications of the Homeopathic Employment of Medicines in Ordinary Practice", published in Versammlung der Hufelandische medicinisch-chirurgischen Gesellschaft.

  Technology

• July 20 – French brothers Claude and Nicéphore Niépce receive a patent for their Pyréolophore, an early internal combustion engine, having demonstrated it powering a boat on the Saône.
• August 17 – Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat makes her first trip from New York to Albany.
• November 19 – English inventor Lionel Lukin launches the world's first sailing self-righting rescue life-boat, the Frances Anne, at Lowestoft.
• William Cubitt patents self-regulating sails for windmills.
• Henry Maudslay patents an improved table engine.
• William Hyde Wollaston patents the camera lucida.

  Zoology

• April 21 – The Tasmanian devil is first described, by George Prideaux Robert Harris.

  Publications

• Alexander von Humboldt's Le Voyage aux Régions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent, fait en 1799-1804, par Alexandre de Humboldt et Aimé Bonpland begins publication.
• Thomas Young's A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts published.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: Everard Home

  Births

• January 28 – Robert McClure, Irish-born Arctic explorer
• May 28 – Louis Agassiz, Swiss-born American zoologist and geologist
• November 14 – Auguste Laurent, French chemist
• November 30 – William Farr, English epidemiologist

  Deaths

• February 27 – Louise du Pierry, French astronomer
• April 4 – Joseph Jérôme Lefrançais de Lalande, French astronomer
• December 5 – Francis Willis, English physician specialising in mental disorders