1888 in science

Events

• International Exhibition of Science, Art and Industry, in Glasgow, Scotland.

  Astronomy

• January 3 – The 91 cm refracting telescope at Lick Observatory is first used. The James Lick telescope is the largest refractor in the world at this time, and the observatory is the first established at the top of a mountain.
• The 76 cm refracting telescope is completed at Nice Observatory.
• John Louis Emil Dreyer's New General Catalogue is published.

  Biology

• June 30 – The Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom opens its laboratory on Plymouth Hoe.
• Seventeen biologists found the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA, which will become a major center of applied research.
• Peter Hermann Stillmark describes the isolation of ricin, thus founding the field of lectinology.

  Chemistry

• Methyl isocyanate is discovered.
• Henri-Louis Le Chatelier states that the response of a chemical system perturbed from equilibrium will be to counteract the perturbation.
• Emil Fischer establishes the relation between glucose, fructose and mannose by passage to a common osazone.

  Geography

• January 27 – The National Geographic Society is founded in Washington, D.C. by Gardiner Greene Hubbard.

  Mathematics

• The American Mathematical Society is founded by Thomas Fiske.
• Hilbert's basis theorem is first proved by David Hilbert.
• Francis Galton introduces the concept of correlation in statistics.
• Richard Dedekind publishes Was sind und was sollen die Zahlen? which includes his definition of an infinite set.
• Sofia Kovalevskaya discovers the 'Kovalevskaya top'.

  Meteorology

• The global atmospheric temperature returns to normal, five years after the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. The volcanic dust veil, that has created spectacular atmospheric effects, also acted as a solar-radiation filter, lowering global temperatures by as much as 1.2 degrees Celsius in the year after the eruption.

  Physics

• Heinrich Rudolf Hertz discovers radio waves.

  Physiology and medicine

• Carlo Martinotti describes cortical cells later known as Martinotti cells.
• Emile Roux and Alexandre Yersin isolate diphtheria toxin.
• German ophthalmologist Adolf Gaston Eugen Fick constructs and fits the first successful glass contact lens.

  Technology

• January 3 – Marvin Stone is granted a United States patent for the paper drinking straw.
• April – American engineer Oliver B. Shallenberger invents a practical AC induction electricity meter.
• May 1 – Nikola Tesla is granted a US patent for the induction motor.
• May 15 – Emile Berliner is granted a US patent for the gramophone record.
• August 10 – Gottlieb Daimler flies in an airship designed by Dr. Frederich Wölfert powered by a Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft-built petrol engine.
• September 4 – George Eastman is granted a US patent for his roll film camera, for which he registers the trademark Kodak.
• October 3 – The first patent for a ballpoint pen is granted to John Loud, a British tanner who wishes to produce a writing instrument that can write on leather.
• October 14 – Louis Le Prince shoots the first recorded film, Roundhay Garden Scene, in Leeds, England, using a single lens camera and Eastman paper film.
• December 7 – John Boyd Dunlop patents the pneumatic bicycle tyre.

  Awards

• Copley Medal: Thomas Henry Huxley
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Henry Benedict Medlicott

  Births

• February 14 – Robert Remak, German mathematician.
• February 17 – Otto Stern, German-born physicist, Nobel laureate in Physics in 1943.
• May 13 – Inge Lehmann, Danish seismologist.
• June 12 – Zygmunt Janiszewski, Polish mathematician.
• July 5 – Herbert Spencer Gasser, American physiologist, Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine in 1944.
• July 22 – Selman Waksman, Ukrainian-born Jewish-American biochemist and microbiologist.
• July 23 – Ivan Magill, Irish-born anaesthesiologist.
• August 13 – John Logie Baird, Scottish-born inventor.
• November 15 – Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, Norwegian meteorologist and oceanographer.
• November 24 – Eduard Pernkopf, Austrian anatomist.
• November 30 – Ralph Hartley, American electrical engineer.

  Deaths

• January 19 – Heinrich Anton de Bary, German surgeon, botanist, microbiologist and mycologist.
• February 22 – Anna Kingsford, English physician, anti-vivisectionist and vegetarian.
• March 9 – Robert Gordon Latham, English ethnologist and philologist.
• March 15 – Squire Whipple, American civil engineer.
• April 1 – Jules Émile Planchon, French botanist.
• May 21 – Friedrich Gerke, German pioneer of telegraphy.
• August 23 – Philip Henry Gosse, English science writer.
• August 24 – Rudolf Clausius, German physicist.
• September 12 – Richard A. Proctor, English astronomer.
• September 30 – Eunice Newton Foote, American physicist and women's rights campaigner.
• October 25 – Theodor Kjerulf, Norwegian geologist.
• November 1 – Nikolay Przhevalsky, Russian explorer.