title: 1678 in science
text: # 1678 in science
  
  The year 1678 in science and technology involved some significant events.
  
  ## Astronomy
  
  * Edmund Halley publishes a catalogue of 341 southern stars—the first systematic southern sky survey.
  
  ## Physics
  
  * Christiaan Huygens publishes his Traité de la Lumière/Treatise on Light, which states his principle of wavefront sources.
  * Robert Hooke discovers the fundamental law of elasticity when he finds that the stress (force) exerted is proportional to the strain (elongation) produced.
  
  ## Zoology
  
  * Publication of English Spiders by Martin Lister, the first book devoted to spiders.
  
  ## Births
  
  * April 14 – Abraham Darby I, ironmaster (died 1717)
  * July 16 – Jakob Hermann, mathematician (died 1733)
  * October 27 – Pierre Raymond de Montmort, mathematician (died 1719)
  * November 26 – Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan, geophysicist (died 1771)
  * December 2 – Nicolaas Kruik (Cruquius), cartographer and meteorologist (died 1754)
  * unknown – Pierre Fauchard, physician and "father of modern dentistry" (died 1761)
  
  ## Deaths
  
  * November 28 – Willem Piso, physician and naturalist (born 1611)
  