The year 1749 in science and technology involved
some significant events.
== Astronomy ==
Pierre Bouguer publishes La figure de la terre
in Paris, describing some of the results of
his work with Charles Marie de La Condamine
on the French Geodesic Mission to Peru (begun
in 1735) to measure a degree of the meridian
arc near the equator.
== Biology ==
Georges-Louis Leclerc, afterwards Comte du
Buffon, begins publication of his Histoire
naturelle, générale et particulière.
== Mathematics ==
April 12 – Euler produces the first proof
of Fermat's theorem on sums of two squares,
based on infinite descent.
== Institutions ==
April 12 – Official opening of the Radcliffe
Library in Oxford, built under the will of
the physician John Radcliffe (died 1714) (although
it does not become a primarily science library
until 1810).
Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin appointed Secretary
of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in
Stockholm, a position he will hold until his
death in 1783.
== Awards ==
Copley Medal: John Harrison
== Births ==
February 4 – Thomas Earnshaw, English watchmaker
(died 1829)
March 23 – Pierre-Simon Laplace, French
mathematician and astronomer (died 1827)
May 17 – Edward Jenner, English physician,
inventor of the smallpox vaccine (died 1823)
September 6 – Benjamin Bell, Scottish surgeon
(died 1806)
September 25 – Abraham Gottlob Werner, German
geologist (died 1817)
November 3 – Daniel Rutherford, Scottish
physician, chemist and botanist noted for
the isolation of nitrogen (died 1819)
== Deaths ==
September 10 – Émilie du Châtelet, French
mathematician and physicist (born 1706)
December 23 – Mark Catesby, English naturalist
(born 1683
