1859 - Science

Science

On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favored Species in the Struggle for Life by Charles Darwin creates a furor by flying in the face of fundamentalist religion and refuting the Lamarckian notion that acquired traits can be inherited (see Lamarck, 1809). Darwin has been reluctant to publish his work, but Alfred Russel Wallace has forced his hand (see 1858), and he has gone ahead with the blessing of scientists who include geologist Sir Charles Lyell, botanist Sir Joseph Hooker, and biologist T. H. Huxley (see 1860). Harvard botanist Asa Gray has been corresponding with Darwin and is prominent among those supporting him (Gray himself publishes a study of Japanese botany and its relation to that of North America, winning worldwide acclaim for his scientific research).

Naturalist-explorer Alexander, Baron von Humboldt, dies at his native Berlin May 6 at age 88.

Archaeologists working in northern France's Somme Valley gravel quarries turn up fossilized animal remains, early flint handaxes, and other evidence to support the idea of a long-term evolutionary process.

The spectrum analysis elaborated by German physicist Gustav R. (Robert) Kirchhoff, 35, and R. W. Bunsen of 1850 Bunsen burner fame will permit the discovery of new elements (see Mendeléev, 1870). They show that when light passes through a gas or any heated material only certain wavelengths are absorbed and emitted; since each pure substance has its own characteristic spectrum, analyzing the spectrum of emissions reveals the material's chemical composition.

Louis Pasteur disproves the chemical theory of fermentation that has been advanced by the German chemist Baron von Liebig (see 1857; "spontaneous generation" refutation, 1860). Pasteur's daughter Jan dies of typhoid fever in September.

Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell, 28, sets forth a law describing the statistical distribution of velocities among the energies of the molecules in a gas (see Boltzmann, 1871).

"On the Number of Prime in a Given Magnitude" ("Uber die Anzahle der Primzahlen unter einer gegebenern Grosse") by mathematician Bernhard Riemann gives a partial description of the asymptomatic frequency of prime numbers (positive integral numbers, e.g., 2, 3, 5, etc.) (see 1854).