title: 1728 in science
text: # 1728 in science
  
  The year 1728 in science and technology involved some significant events.
  
  ## Astronomy
  
  * James Bradley uses stellar aberration (first observed in 1725) to calculate the speed of light to be approximately 301,000 km/s.
  * James Bradley observes nutation of the Earth's axis.
  
  ## Botany
  
  * September – Bartram's Garden, the oldest surviving botanic garden in North America, is established in Philadelphia by John Bartram.
  
  ## Exploration
  
  * July 14 – August 14 – Vitus Bering sails northward from the Kamchatka Peninsula, through the Bering Strait, and rounds Cape Dezhnev.
  
  ## Physiology and medicine
  
  * Pierre Fauchard publishes Le Chirurgien Dentiste, ou, Traité des Dents, the first comprehensive text on dentistry, including the first description of orthodontic braces.
  
  ## Births
  
  * February 13 – John Hunter, Scottish surgeon, pathologist and comparative anatomist (died 1793)
  * March 20 – Samuel-Auguste Tissot, Swiss physician (died 1797)
  * April 16 – Joseph Black, Scottish physicist and chemist (died 1799)
  * August 26 – Johann Heinrich Lambert, Swiss polymath (died 1777)
  * September 3 – Matthew Boulton, English mechanical engineer (died 1809)
  * October 27 – James Cook, English explorer (died 1779)
  
  ## Deaths
  
  * April 25 – John Woodward, English naturalist (born 1665)
  * August 11 – William Sherard, English botanist (born 1659)
  * Caleb Threlkeld, Irish botanist (born 1676)
  