title: 1841 in science
text: # 1841 in science
  
  The year 1841 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
  
  ## Biology
  
  * Rev. Miles Joseph Berkeley demonstrates that Phytophthora infestans (potato blight) is a fungal infection.
  * Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, first open to the public and William Hooker appointed director.
  * John Gould begins publication of A Monograph of the Macropodidae, or Family of Kangaroos.
  
  ## Chemistry
  
  * Theobromine is first discovered in cacao beans by Russian chemist Alexander Woskresensky.
  * Uranium is first isolated, by Eugène-Melchior Péligot.
  * Chemical Society of London founded by Thomas Graham.
  * Reinsch test for heavy metals discovered by Hugo Reinsch.
  
  ## Exploration
  
  * January 27 – The active volcano Mount Erebus in Antarctica is discovered and named by James Clark Ross.
  * January 28 – Ross discovers the "Victoria Barrier", later known as the Ross Ice Shelf.
  * Ross additionally discovers the Ross Sea, Victoria Land and Mount Terror.
  
  ## Geology
  
  * Hugh Miller publishes The Old Red Sandstone.
  * The first comprehensive geological map of France is published by Dufrénoy and Élie de Beaumont, the result of thirteen years of investigations.
  
  ## Human sciences
  
  * November 13 – Scottish surgeon James Braid attends his first demonstration of animal magnetism (given by Charles Lafontaine in Manchester, England) which leads to Braid's study of the subject he eventually calls hypnotism.
  
  ## Mathematics
  
  * Prussian mathematician Karl Weierstrass discovers but does not publish the Laurent expansion theorem.
  * English mathematician William Rutherford calculates an approximation of π to 208 decimal places of which the first 152 are correct.
  
  ## Physiology and medicine
  
  * Platelets are first described from microscopic observation by George Gulliver.
  
  ## Technology
  
  * February – H. Fox Talbot obtains a patent in the United Kingdom for the calotype process in photography.
  * April 16 – Loring Coes patents the screw type wrench commonly known as the monkey wrench in the United States.
  * April 24 – Squire Whipple patents the iron bowstring arch through truss bridge in the United States.
  * Draughtsman William Howe and pattern-maker William Williams of Robert Stephenson and Company in Newcastle upon Tyne originate Stephenson valve gear for the steam locomotive.
  * Joseph Whitworth introduces the British Standard Whitworth system of screw threads in his paper On a Uniform System of Screw Threads.
  * American artist John G. Rand invents the collapsible zinc oil paint tube, marketed by Winsor & Newton of London.
  
  ## Awards
  
  * Copley Medal: Georg Ohm
  * Wollaston Medal: Adolphe Theodore Brongniart
  
  ## Births
  
  * January 29 – Henry Morton Stanley (died 1904), explorer, journalist.
  * February 2 – François-Alphonse Forel (died 1912), pioneer in the study of lakes.
  * February 4 – Clément Ader (died 1926), engineer and inventor, airplane pioneer.
  * February 24 – Carl Gräbe, (died 1927) chemist.
  * March 6 – Alfred Cornu (died 1902), physicist.
  * August 4 – W. H. Hudson (died 1922), naturalist.
  * August 25 – Emil Theodor Kocher (died 1917), 1909 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
  * October 12 – Joseph O'Dwyer (died 1898), physician
  * October 26 – Theodor von Oppolzer (died 1886), astronomer.
  * November 3 – Eugen Warming (died 1924), botanist and founder of ecology.
  * December 29 – Rosalie Fougelberg (d. 1911), Swedish dentist
  
  ## Deaths
  
  * April 22 – Charles Barbier, inventor of a method of writing for the blind that was the inspiration for Braille.
  * May 16 – Marie Boivin, French midwife, inventor and obstetrics writer (born 1773)
  * May 31 – George Green (born 1793), English mathematician.
  * August 18 – Louis de Freycinet (born 1779), explored coastal regions of Western Australia.
  * September 9 – Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (born 1778), Swiss botanist.
  * October 28 – Johan August Arfwedson (born 1792), Swedish chemist.
  