The year 1766 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

• Lagrange submits a paper on the movements of Jupiter's satellites to the Acad mie fran aise.

Biology

• Moses Harris publishes The Aurelian, or, natural history of English insects; namely, moths and butterflies.

Chemistry

• Henry Cavendish publishes his paper "On Factitious Airs". This is generally credited as showing the discovery of hydrogen, since it describes the density of 'inflammable air', which forms water on combustion.
• Pierre Macquer publishes his Dictionnaire de chymie.

Exploration

• November 15 - Louis Antoine de Bougainville leaves Nantes for a three-year circumnavigation of the world with the ships La Boudeuse and toile; the botanist Philibert Commer on is on board.

Mathematics

• Arima Yoriyuki finds a rational approximation of \pi, correct to 29 digits.^[1][2]

• Euler gives up his post as director of mathematics at the Prussian Academy of Sciences and returns to Saint Petersburg. On the recommendation of Euler and d'Alembert, Lagrange succeeds him in Berlin, where he will stay for over twenty years.

Medicine

• October - Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, England, completed.

Metallurgy

• The Cranege brothers experiment with the use of the reverberatory furnace for the production of wrought iron from cast iron using coal fuel at the Coalbrookdale iron works under the sponsorship of Richard Reynolds in England.

Events

• Joseph Wright of Derby paints A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery.

Awards

• Copley Medal: William Brownrigg; Edward Delaval; Henry Cavendish

Births

• July 6 - Alexander Wilson, ornithologist (died 1813)
• August 3 - Kurt Sprengel, botanist (died 1833)
• August 6 - William Hyde Wollaston, chemist (died 1828)
• September 6 - John Dalton, chemist and physicist (died 1844)
• December 29 - Charles Macintosh, inventor of a waterproof fabric (died 1843)
• John Farey, geologist (died 1826)

Deaths

References

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