Editing 1727 in science (section)

==Mathematics==
* This year's [[French Academy of Sciences]] prize is based on a problem on the masting of ships: to calculate the number of masts to use and where in the ship to locate them. [[Pierre Bouguer]] gains the award for his paper ''On the masting of ships''; and two other prizes, one for his dissertation ''On the best method of observing the altitude of stars at sea'' and the other for his paper ''On the best method of observing the variation of the compass at sea''. The 19-year-old [[Euler]] enters for the prize with an essay written in 1726 and published in 1728.