1606 in science

Cryptography

• The cryptographic text Steganographia, written by Johannes Trithemius c.1499/1500, is published in Frankfurt.

  Exploration

• February 26
• * Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon makes the first confirmed sighting of Australia by a European.
• * Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the Pitcairn Islands.
• March – The Duke of York's ship Duyfken, under Captain Willem Janszoon, explores the western coast of Cape York Peninsula.
• May – Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the islands of Vanuatu; believing them to be Australia, he names them La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo.
• October – Luís Vaz de Torres is the first European to sail through the Torres Strait.

  Mathematics

• Giovanni Antonio Magini devises trigonometric tables of high accuracy.

  Physics

• Approx. date – Galileo invents a thermometer based on the expansion of gas.

  Technology

• The first recorded instance of a bayonet published in the Chinese military treatise :zh:兵录|Binglu.

  Births

• January 4 – Edmund Castell, English orientalist

  Deaths

• September 28 – Nicolaus Taurellus, German philosopher and scientist
• November 13 – Girolamo Mercuriale, Italian physician and historian
• Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, Dutch nautical chart maker