History of science / 1700 CE — 1849 CE

Age of Experiment

Classification, energy and life

Classification, precise measurement and experiment develop new research traditions, shared through books, instruments and schools.

Open science atlas5 selected stories

Thematic illustration of geometry, the sky and scientific instruments; not a documented historical scene. — An original diagram evokes this era’s themes. It is not a historical artifact, a documented scene or a picture of this particular event.

Selected stories

1735 (first edition) · Scientific methods
Linnaeus arranges nature in tables
The first Systema naturae arranged animals, plants and minerals in tables, offering naturalists a shared framework that later editions continued to revise.
1789 (publication) · Chemistry
Lavoisier reorganizes chemistry
Lavoisier’s Elementary Treatise linked careful weighing, an oxygen-based account of combustion and revised chemical language in a systematic teaching framework.
14 May 1796 (inoculation) · Life sciences
Jenner tests cowpox inoculation
Jenner inoculated James Phipps with cowpox material, then investigated protection against smallpox. Publication and wider adoption followed later.
29 August 1831 (ring experiment) · Physics
Faraday demonstrates electromagnetic induction
Changes in one circuit produced a brief current in a nearby coil. Faraday then investigated other ways to generate currents through magnetism and motion.
1843 (translation and Notes) · Computing
Lovelace explores programmable machines
Lovelace expanded Menabrea’s account of Babbage’s Analytical Engine with notes on operations, a Bernoulli-number procedure and possible uses beyond numerical calculation.