1828 in science

Astronomy

• Félix Savary computes the first orbit of a visual double star when he calculates the orbit of the double star Xi Ursae Majoris.

  Biology

• April 27 – London Zoo opens in Regent's Park for members of the Zoological Society of London.
• Karl Ernst von Baer lays the foundations of the science of comparative embryology with his book Über Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere. He published von Baer's laws.
• Martin Lichtenstein publishes a monograph on the Dipodidae, Über die Springmäuse, in Berlin.
• Belfast Botanic Gardens open.

  Chemistry

• Jöns Jakob Berzelius produces a table of atomic weights and discovers thorium.
• Urea becomes the first organic compound to be artificially synthesised, by Friedrich Wöhler, establishing that organic compounds could be produced from inorganic starting materials and potentially disproving a cornerstone of vitalism, the belief that life is not subject to the laws of science in the way inanimate objects are.

  Medicine

• February 19 – The Boston Society for Medical Improvement is established in the United States.
• April 17 – Royal Free Hospital, established as the London General Institution for the Gratuitous Care of Malignant Diseases by surgeon William Marsden, opens.
• December 24 – Burke and Hare murders: William Burke is sentenced to hang for his part in the murder of 17 victims to provide bodies for dissection by Edinburgh anatomist Robert Knox.
• F. Maury publishes Traité Complet de l'Art du Dentiste, the first handbook of dentistry.

  Paleontology

• January 7 – Rev. Henry Duncan describes his discovery of the fossil footmarks of quadrupeds in Permian red sandstone in south west Scotland, the first scientific report of a fossil track.
• December – Mary Anning discovers Britain's first pterosaur fossil at Lyme Regis on the Jurassic Coast of England.
• Adolphe Theodore Brongniart publishes Prodrome d'une histoire des Végétaux Fossils, a study of fossil plants.

  Physics

• Self-taught English mathematician George Green publishes An Essay on the Application of Mathematical Analysis to the Theories of Electricity and Magnetism in Nottingham, the first mathematical theory of electricity and magnetism, introducing a form of divergence theorem, the idea of potential theory, and the concept of what will come to be called Green's functions.
• Irish astronomer William Rowan Hamilton publishes Theory of Systems of Rays.

  Technology

• October 1 – James Beaumont Neilson of Scotland patents the hot blast process for ironmaking.
• Ányos Jedlik creates the world's first electric motor.
• The brothers John and Charles Deane produce the first diving helmet by adaptation of a smoke helmet produced for them by Augustus Siebe.
• Scottish architect Peter Nicholson sets out a method of preparing stones for construction of a helicoidal skew arch.

  Institutions

• Imperial Petersburg Institute of Technology established in the Russian Empire.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: not awarded

  Births

• April 17
• * Sampson Gamgee, Tuscan-born English surgeon.
• * Johanna Mestorf, German prehistoric archaeologist.
• March 24 – Jules Verne, French science fiction author.
• April 29 – Étienne Stéphane Tarnier, French obstetrician.
• May 8 – Jean Henri Dunant, Swiss founder of the Red Cross.
• June 21 – Ferdinand André Fouqué, French geologist and petrologist.
• July 23 – Jonathan Hutchinson, English physician.
• August 6 – Andrew Taylor Still, American "father of osteopathy".
• August 28 – William A. Hammond, American military physician and neurologist.
• September 15 – Aleksandr Butlerov, Russian chemist.
• October 31 – Joseph Swan, English surgeon.
• November 22 – Lydia Shackleton, Irish botanical artist.

  Deaths

• March 17 – James Edward Smith, English botanist.
• March 23 – David Friesenhausen, German-Hungarian-Jewish rabbi, mathematician and astronomer.
• July 5 – Andrew Duncan, Scottish physician.
• August 8 – Carl Peter Thunberg, Swedish botanist.
• August 22 – Franz Joseph Gall, German-born neuroanatomist.
• December 22 – William Hyde Wollaston, English chemist.