1856 in science

The year 1856 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

ArchaeologyEdit

First remains of Neanderthal Man found in the Neandertal Valley of Germany.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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N. R. Pogson proposes that the ratio used in Hipparchus' stellar apparent magnitude system should be adopted as a standard.
NGC 6539 is discovered by Theodor Brorsen.

Paul Du Chaillu becomes the first European to observe gorillas in the wild.<ref>Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chace of the Gorilla, Crocodile, and other Animals (1861).</ref>
Gregor Mendel starts his research on genetics.
Lev Tsenkovsky introduces the concept that the lower algae and other infusoria are unicellular organisms.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

May 20 – Dr David Livingstone arrives at Quelimane on the Indian Ocean having completed a 2-year transcontinental journey across Africa from Luanda.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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Thomas Montgomerie of the Great Trigonometric Survey of India makes the first survey of the Karakoram Range, from Mount Haramukh, Template:Convert to the south, and designates the two most prominent peaks as K1 and K2.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton invents the icosian game, which involves finding the Hamiltonian path on a dodecahedron.

August 23 – Eunice Newton Foote's paper on "Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun's rays" read at the American Association for the Advancement of Science presents the causes of the greenhouse effect.
October 4 – American meteorologist William Ferrel demonstrates the tendency of rising and rotating warm air to pull in air from more southerly, warmer regions and transport it poleward.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

American paleontologist Joseph Leidy describes the new tyrannosaurid dinosaur genus and species Deinodon horridus.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

September 22 – British metallurgist Robert Mushet patents improvements to the Bessemer process for the production of steel.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
English agricultural engineer John Fowler first demonstrates his steam-driven agricultural ploughing system.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
English engineer John Ramsbottom invents a tamper-proof spring safety valve for steam locomotives.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
French chemist Alphonse Louis Poitevin invents the collotype photographic process.
Tinsmith Ralph Collier of Baltimore, Maryland, patents the first egg beater with rotating parts.<ref>{{#if:16267

James Harrison produces the world's first practical ice making machine and refrigerator using the principle of vapour compression in Geelong, Australia.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

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February 24 (February 12 Old Style) – Nikolai Lobachevsky (born 1792), Russian mathematician and geometer.
February 25 – George Don (born 1797), Scottish botanist.
July 9 – Amedeo Avogadro (born 1776), Italian chemist.
August 24 – William Buckland (born 1784), English geologist and paleontologist.
September 1 – William Yarrell (born 1784), English zoologist and bookseller.
November 20 – Farkas Bolyai (born 1775), Hungarian mathematician.
November 21 – James Meadows Rendel (born 1799), English civil engineer.
December 23/24 – Hugh Miller (born 1802), Scottish geologist (suicide).
date unknown – Enriqueta Favez (born 1791), Swiss physician and surgeon.