The year 1885 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Astronomy

• August 20 - Ernst Hartwig discovers S Andromedae, a supernova in the Andromeda galaxy, the first supernova discovered beyond the Milky Way.

Biology

• The genus Plasmodium is described by Ettore Marchiafava and Angelo Celli.
• The bacterium Escherichia coli (E. coli) is discovered by Theodor Escherich.^[1]

Chemistry

• Carl Auer von Welsbach patents his first incandescent gas mantle.

Earth sciences

• Eduard Suess begins publication in Vienna of his Das Antlitz der Erde^[2] setting out his theory of eustasy, the existence of the former supercontinent Gondwana, and his pioneering concepts in ecology.

Medicine

• July 6 - Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies. The patient is Joseph Meister, a boy bitten by a rabid dog.
• Georges Gilles de la Tourette publishes an account of nine patients with what will become known as Tourette syndrome.^[3]

Physics

• Johann Balmer publishes an empirical mathematical formula for the visible spectral lines of the hydrogen atom.^[4][5]

Psychology

• Hermann Ebbinghaus publishes ber das Ged chtnis ("On Memory", later translated as Memory: a Contribution to Experimental Psychology).

Technology

• April 3 - Gottlieb Daimler is granted a German patent for his single-cylinder water-cooled engine design.
• September 30 - Tolbert Lanston makes his first application for a United States patent on a typesetting system which includes the basic Monotype System keyboard.
• Autumn - Karl Benz produces the Benz Patent-Motorwagen, regarded as the first automobile (patented and publicly launched the following January).^[6]
• Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach produce the Daimler Reitwagen, regarded as the first motorcycle.^[7][8][9]
• John Kemp Starley demonstrates the Rover safety bicycle, regarded as the first practical modern bicycle.^[10]
• The first, not yet practical, form of gyrocompass is patented by Marinus Gerardus van den Bos.^[11]
• Completion of the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, designed by William Le Baron Jenney. With ten floors and a fireproof weight-bearing metal frame, it is regarded as the first skyscraper.^[12]
• Completion of Sway Tower in Hampshire, England, designed by Andrew Peterson using concrete made with Portland cement. It remains the world's tallest non-reinforced concrete structure.^[13][14]

Awards

• Copley Medal: Friedrich August Kekul von Stradonitz
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: George Busk

Births

• January 24 - Marjory Stephenson (died 1948), English biochemist
• January 26 - Harry Ricardo (died 1974), English mechanical engineer
• June 2 - Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt (died 1964), German neuropathologist
• August 1 - George de Hevesy (died 1966), Hungarian Nobel laureate in chemistry
• October 7 - Niels Bohr (died 1962), Danish physicist
• October 23 - Jan Czochralski (died 1953), Polish discoverer of the Czochralski process for growing crystals
• November 7 - Sabina Spielrein (k. 1942), Russian psychoanalyst
• November 9 - Hermann Weyl (died 1955), German mathematician
• December 2 - George Minot (died 1950), American Nobel laureate in physiology

Deaths

• June 12 - Fleeming Jenkin (born 1833), English engineer
• November 26 - Thomas Andrews (born 1813), Irish chemist

References

fr:1885 en science mk:1885 no:Vitenskaps ret 1885 nn:Vitskap i 1885 pt:1885 na ci ncia ru:1885 sv:Vetenskaps ret 1885