Editing 1763 in science

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{{Science year nav|1763}}

The following events in the fields of [[science]] and [[technology]] occurred in the year [[1763]].

==Astronomy==
* Publication posthumously of [[Nicolas Louis de Lacaille]]'s ''Coelum australe stelliferum'', cataloguing all his data from the southern hemisphere and including about 10,000 stars and a number of brighter star clusters and [[nebula]]e.
* Publication of [[Edward Stone (clergyman)|Edward Stone]]'s ''The whole doctrine of parallaxes explained and illustrated by an arithmetical and geometrical construction of the transit of Venus over the sun, June 6th, 1761. Enriched with a new and general method of determining the places where any transit of this planet, and especially that which will be June 3d, 1769, may be best observed''.

==Mathematics==
* December 23 – [[Thomas Bayes]]' solution to a problem of "inverse probability" is presented posthumously in his "[[An Essay Towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances|Essay Towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances]]" read by [[Richard Price]] to the [[Royal Society]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/letter.pdf|title=A Letter from the Late Reverend Mr. Thomas Bayes, F.R.S. to John Canton, M.A. and F.R.S.|format=PDF|date=1763-11-24|accessdate=2012-03-01}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|doi=10.1098/rstl.1763.0053|journal=[[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society]]|location=London|volume=53|year=1764|pages=370–418|url=http://www.stat.ucla.edu/history/essay.pdf|title=An Essay towards solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances. By the late Rev. Mr. Bayes, communicated by Mr. Price, in a letter to John Canton|last=Bayes|first=Thomas|access-date=2011-10-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110410085940/http://www.stat.ucla.edu/history/essay.pdf|archive-date=2011-04-10|url-status=dead|doi-access=free}} Read December 23, 1763.</ref> containing a statement of a special case of [[Bayes' theorem]].<ref>{{cite book|last=McGrayne|first=Sharon Bertsch|year=2011|title=The Theory That Would Not Die|url=https://archive.org/details/theorythatwouldn0000mcgr|url-access=registration|location=New Haven|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-16969-0}}</ref>
* [[Euler's totient function]] is first published.<ref>{{cite journal|first=L.|last=Euler|url=http://eulerarchive.maa.org/pages/E271.html|title=Theoremata arithmetica nova methodo demonstrata|journal=Novi commentarii academiae scientiarum imperialis Petropolitanae|location=Saint-Petersburg|volume=8|year=1763|pages=74–104}}</ref>

==Medicine==
* [[Edward Stone (clergyman)|Edward Stone]] publishes his discovery of the medicinal properties of [[salicylic acid]].<ref>{{cite journal|title=An Account of the Success of the Bark of the Willow in the Cure of Agues. In a Letter to the Right Honourable George Earl of Macclesfield, President of R.S. from the Rev. Mr. Edmund [sic.] Stone, of Chipping-Norton in Oxfordshire|journal=Philosophical Transactions|volume=53|publisher=Royal Society|location=London|year=1763}}</ref>

==Awards==
* [[Copley Medal]]: Not awarded<ref>{{cite web |title=Copley Medal {{!}} British scientific award |url=https://www.britannica.com/science/Copley-Medal |website=Encyclopedia Britannica |accessdate=21 July 2020 |language=en}}</ref>

==Births==
* January 31 ''(bapt.)'' – [[John Brinkley (astronomer)|John Brinkley]], [[English people|English]] astronomer (died [[1835 in science|1835]])
* May 12 – [[John Bell (surgeon)|John Bell]], [[Scottish people|Scottish]] [[surgeon]] (died [[1820 in science|1820]])
* May 16 – [[Louis Nicolas Vauquelin]], [[French people|French]] [[chemist]] (died [[1829 in science|1829]])
* August 16 – [[Giovanni Battista Guglielmini]], [[Bologna|Bolognese]] [[physicist]] (died [[1817 in science|1817]])
* October 27 – [[William Maclure]], [[Scottish American]] geologist (died [[1840 in science|1840]])
* December 25 – [[Claude Chappe]], French engineer (died [[1805 in science|1805]])
*[[William Higgins (chemist)|William Higgins]], [[Irish people|Irish]] chemist (died [[1825 in science|1825]])

==Deaths==
* March 5 – [[William Smellie (obstetrician)|William Smellie]], Scottish [[obstetrician]] (born [[1697 in science|1697]])
* July 11 – [[Peter Forsskål]], [[Swedes|Swedish]] [[naturalist]] (born [[1732 in science|1732]])

==References==
{{reflist}}

[[Category:1763 in science| ]]
[[Category:18th century in science]]
[[Category:1760s in science]]