1811 in science

The year 1811 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• March 25 – Great Comet discovered by Honoré Flaugergues.

Biology

• Linnean taxonomy and a major influence on the concept of the 'Family' in biology. He first defines the infraclass Marsupialia
  .
• Peter Simon Pallas begins publication of Zoographia rosso-Asiatica, sistens omnium animalium in extenso Imperio rossico, et adjacentibus maribus observatorum recensionem, domicilia, mores et descriptiones, anatomen atque icones plurimorum in Saint Petersburg.

Chemistry

• Bernard Courtois discovers iodine.^[1]
• Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thénard publish Recherches Physico-Chimiques, faites sur la pile; sur la préparation chimique et les propriétés du potassium et du sodium; sur la décomposition de l'acide boracique; sur les acides fluorique, muriatique et muriatique oxigéné; sur l'action chimique de la lumière; sur l'analyse végétale et animale, etc. in Paris.
• Amedeo Avogadro proposes Avogadro's law, that equal volumes of gases under constant temperature and pressure contain equal number of molecules.^[2]

Earth sciences

• volcanic eruption, observed from British sloop HMS Sabrina (1806), briefly creates Sabrina Island (Azores)
  .

• Carl Friedrich Gauss works with functions of complex number variables.^[3]
• S. D. Poisson publishes Traité de mécanique (vol. 1).

Medicine

• Charles Bell publishes An Idea of a New Anatomy of the Brain,^[4] starting to distinguish between sensory and motor nerves.
• Abraham Colles publishes A Treatise on Surgical Anatomy in Dublin.
• contraception.^[5]

• Ichthyosaur at Lyme Regis
  .

• Amedeo Avogadro proposes his hypothesis relating volumes and numbers of molecules of gases.

Technology

• Friedrich Koenig, with the assistance of Andreas Friedrich Bauer, produces the first steam printing press, in London.^[6]

Awards

• Copley Medal: Benjamin Brodie^[7]

Births

• March 2 –
  ornithologist (died 1853
  )
• March 11
  • Lady Katherine Sophia Kane née Baily, Irish botanist (died 1886)
  • Urbain Le Verrier, French astronomer (died 1877)
• March 30 –
  German chemist (died 1899
  )
• July 13 –
  James Young, Scottish chemist (died 1883
  )
• September 14 –
  epidemiologist (died 1880
  )
• October 25 – Évariste Galois, French mathematician (died 1832)
• John Waterston, Scottish physicist and civil engineer (died 1883)

Deaths

• February 9 – Nevil Maskelyne, English Astronomer Royal (born 1732)
• August 31 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville, French explorer (born 1729)
• September 8 –
  naturalist (born 1741
  )