# 1833 in science

The year 1833 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

## Astronomy

* November 12–13 – A spectacular occurrence of the Leonid meteor shower is observed over Alabama.

## Biology

* May 3 – The Entomological Society of London is inaugurated.
* Katherine Sophia Kane's The Irish Flora is published anonymously.

## Chemistry

* Thomas Graham proposes Graham's law.

## Computer science

* June 5 – Ada Lovelace is introduced to Charles Babbage by Mary Somerville.

## Geophysics

* November 25 – A major 8.7 earthquake strikes Sumatra.

## Mathematics

* probable date – Paul Gerwien proves the Bolyai–Gerwien theorem formulated by Farkas Bolyai: that any two simple polygons of equal area are equidecomposable.

## Paleontology

* Henry Witham publishes The Internal Structure of Fossil Vegetables found in the Carboniferous and Oolitic deposits of Great Britain in Edinburgh.

## Physics

* Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Eduard Weber develop an electromagnetic telegraph at Göttingen.

## Physiology and medicine

* William Beaumont publishes Experiments and Observations on the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion.
* Charles Bell publishes The Hand: its Mechanism and Vital Endowments as Evincing Design, the fourth Bridgewater Treatise.
* Marshall Hall coins the term "reflex" for a muscular reaction.
* Jean Lobstein proposes use of the term arteriosclerosis.
* Johannes Peter Müller begins publication of his major physiology textbook Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschen.
* Anselme Payen discovers diastase (the first enzyme identified).

## Technology

* August 18 – The Canadian ship SS Royal William sets out from Pictou, Nova Scotia on a 25-day passage of the Atlantic Ocean largely under steam to Gravesend, Kent, England.
* Obed Hussey patents a reaper in the United States.
* Cornish engineer Adrian Stephens invents the steam whistle as a warning device at Dowlais Ironworks in Wales.
* Publication by Charles Knight of The Penny Cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge begins in London.

## Awards

* Copley Medal: Not awarded

## Births

* January 19 – Alfred Clebsch (died 1872), German mathematician.
* February 26 – Georges Pouchet (died 1894), French comparative anatomist.
* March 14 – Lucy Hobbs Taylor (died 1910), American dentist.
* March 23 – Karl Friedrich Otto Westphal (died 1890), German psychiatrist.
* March 25 – Fleeming Jenkin (died 1885), English electrical engineer.
* May 5 – Ferdinand von Richthofen (died 1905), German geographer.
* June 29 – Peter Waage (died 1900), Norwegian chemist.
* October 9 – Eugen Langen (died 1895), German mechanical engineer.
* October 17 – Paul Bert (died 1886), French physiologist.
* October 21 – Alfred Nobel (died 1896), Swedish inventor.
* November 27 - Émile Vallin (died 1924), French military physician.
* December 2 – Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen (died 1910), German pathologist.

## Deaths

* January 10 – Adrien-Marie Legendre (born 1752), mathematician.
* February 6
** Fausto Elhuyar (born 1755), chemist
** Pierre André Latreille (born 1762), zoologist.
* February 14 – Gottlieb Kirchhoff (born 1764), chemist.
* April 22 – Richard Trevithick (born 1771), engineer and inventor.
* May 15 – Bewick Bridge (born 1767), mathematician.
* July 5 – Nicéphore Niépce (born 1765), inventor.
* October 31 – Johann Friedrich Meckel (born 1781), anatomist.