1854 in science

Astronomy

• July 22 – Discovery of the asteroid 30 Urania by John Russell Hind.
• George Airy calculates the mean density of the Earth by measuring the gravity in a coal mine in South Shields.

  Chemistry

• Benjamin Silliman of Yale University is the first person to fractionate petroleum into its individual components by distillation.

  Exploration

• January 4 – First definite sighting of McDonald Islands in the Antarctic.

  Mathematics

• March 26 – Playfair cipher first demonstrated, by Charles Wheatstone.
• George Boole's work on algebraic logic, An Investigation of the Laws of Thought on Which are Founded the Mathematical Theories of Logic and Probabilities, published in London.
• Arthur Cayley states the original version of Cayley's theorem and produces the first Cayley table.
• Bernhard Riemann, a German mathematician, submits his habilitation thesis Ueber die Darstellbarkeit einer Function durch eine trigonometrische Reihe, in which he describes the Riemann integral. It is published by Richard Dedekind in 1867.

  Medicine

• April–May – Dr John Snow traces the source of one outbreak of cholera in London to a single water pump, validating his theory that cholera is water-borne, and forming the starting point for epidemiology.
• November – Florence Nightingale and her team of trained volunteer nurses arrive at Selimiye Barracks in Scutari in the Ottoman Empire to care for British Army troops invalided from the Crimean War.
• Spanish-born vocal pedagogist Manuel García observes his own functioning glottis using a form of laryngoscope incorporating mirrors.
• Claude Bernard introduces the term Milieu intérieur in physiology.

  Microbiology

• Filippo Pacini, an Italian anatomist, discovers Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera.
• Louis Pasteur begins studying fermentation at the request of brewers.

  Technology

• May 9 – Albert Fink patents the Fink truss in the United States.
• May 17 – Deck of Wheeling Suspension Bridge in the United States destroyed through torsional movement and vertical undulations in a severe windstorm.
• July – First voyage by a seagoing steamship fitted with a compound steam engine, the screw steamer Brandon, built on the River Clyde in Scotland by John Elder.
• September 19 – Thaddeus Hyatt patents a practical pavement light.
• November 27 – André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri patents a method of producing carte de visite photographs in France.
• December 20 – In the case of Talbot v. Laroche, pioneer of photography Henry Fox Talbot fails in asserting that the collodion process infringes his calotype patent.
• James Ambrose Cutting takes out three United States patents for improvements to the wet plate collodion process.
• Elisha Otis completes work on the safety elevator.

  Events

• 10 June – The Crystal Palace reopens in Sydenham, South London with life-size dinosaur models in the grounds.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: Johannes Peter Müller
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Richard John Griffith

  Births

• January 27 – George Alexander Gibson, Scottish physician and geologist.
• January 29 – Fred Baker, American physician and naturalist.
• February 9 – Aletta Jacobs, Dutch physician and women's suffrage activist
• March 4 – Napier Shaw, English meteorologist.
• March 15 – Emil Adolf von Behring, German physiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901.
• March 31 – Dugald Clerk, Scottish mechanical engineer.
• April 28 – Phoebe Marks, later Hertha Ayrton, English electrical engineer.
• April 29 – Henri Poincaré, French mathematician.
• May 11 – Ottmar Mergenthaler, German-born inventor.
• June 13 – Charles Algernon Parsons, British inventor of the steam turbine.
• July 12 – George Eastman, American photographic inventor.
• July 23 – Birt Acres, American-born cinematographic inventor.
• July 28 – Victor Babeș, Austrian-born Romanian physician and bacteriologist.
• October 3 – Hermann Struve, Russian-born astronomer.

  Deaths

• April 15 – Arthur Aikin, English chemist and mineralogist
• July 6 – Georg Ohm, German physicist
• September 28 – George Field, English colour chemist
• November 18 – Edward Forbes, Manx naturalist