1813 in science

The year 1813 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Biology

• April – William Charles Wells reads a paper to the Royal Society of London making the first clear statement about natural selection.^[1][2][3][4]
• Charles Waterton begins the process of turning his estate at Walton Hall, West Yorkshire, England, into what is, in effect, the world's first nature reserve.^[5]

Chemistry

• Mathieu Orfila publishes his groundbreaking Traité des poisons, formalizing the field of toxicology.^[6]
• Louis Jacques Thénard commences publication of his textbook Traité de chimie élémentaire, théorique et pratique in Paris.
• Edward Howard invents the enclosed vacuum pan for refining sugar.

Exploration

• May 11 – Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth leave on an expedition to cross the Blue Mountains (New South Wales).

Mathematics

• Laplace's second order partial differential equation for potential.^[7]

• British engineer Peter Ewart supports the idea of the conservation of energy in his paper "On the measure of moving force".

Sociology

• Henri de Saint-Simon publishes Physiologie sociale.

Technology

• Probable date – George E. Clymer invents the Columbian press.

Institutions

• March 1 – Sir Humphry Davy employs Michael Faraday as "chemical assistant" at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London.

Awards

• Copley Medal: William Thomas Brande^[8]

Births

• January 19 – Henry Bessemer, English inventor (died 1898)
• February 18 –
  inorganic chemist, an organizer of the Karlsruhe Congress (died 1870
  )
• March 19 – David Livingstone, Scottish missionary and explorer (died 1873)
• April 16 -
  anatomist (died 1893)^[9]
• July 12 –
  physiologist (died 1878
  )
• October 17 – Georg Büchner, Hessian-born writer and anatomist (died 1837)
• December 19 – Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist (died 1885)
• December 29 – Alexander Parkes, English chemist (died 1890)

Deaths

• April 10 –
  Joseph Louis Lagrange, Piedmont-born mathematician (born 1736
  )
• April 19 – Benjamin Rush, Founding Father of the United States, chemist and physician (born 1746)
• April 27 – General Zebulon Pike, American explorer (born 1779)
• May –
  zoologist (born 1775
  )
• July 22 –
  naturalist (born 1751
  )
• August 23 –
  ornithologist (born 1766
  )