1813 in science
# 1813 in science

The year 1813 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

## Biology

* April – William Charles Wells reads a paper to the Royal Society of London making the first clear statement about natural selection.
* Charles Waterton begins the process of turning his estate at Walton Hall, West Yorkshire, England, into what is, in effect, the world's first nature reserve.

## Chemistry

* Mathieu Orfila publishes his groundbreaking Traité des poisons, formalizing the field of toxicology.
* Louis Jacques Thénard commences publication of his textbook Traité de chimie élémentaire, théorique et pratique in Paris.
* Edward Howard invents the enclosed vacuum pan for refining sugar.

## Exploration

* May 11 – Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Wentworth leave on an expedition to cross the Blue Mountains (New South Wales).

## Mathematics

* S. D. Poisson publishes Poisson's equation, his correction of Laplace's second order partial differential equation for potential.

## Physics

* British engineer Peter Ewart supports the idea of the conservation of energy in his paper "On the measure of moving force".

## Sociology

* Henri de Saint-Simon publishes Physiologie sociale.

## Technology

* Probable date – George E. Clymer invents the Columbian press.

## Institutions

* March 1 – Sir Humphry Davy employs Michael Faraday as "chemical assistant" at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London.

## Awards

* Copley Medal: William Thomas Brande

## Births

* January 19 – Henry Bessemer, English inventor (died 1898)
* February 18 – Karl Weltzien, Russian-born German inorganic chemist, an organizer of the Karlsruhe Congress (died 1870)
* March 19 – David Livingstone, Scottish missionary and explorer (died 1873)
* April 16 - Justin Benoît, French surgeon and anatomist (died 1893)
* July 12 – Claude Bernard, French physiologist (died 1878)
* October 17 – Georg Büchner, Hessian-born writer and anatomist (died 1837)
* December 19 – Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist (died 1885)
* December 29 – Alexander Parkes, English chemist (died 1890)

## Deaths

* April 10 – Joseph Louis Lagrange, Piedmont-born mathematician (born 1736)
* April 19 – Benjamin Rush, Founding Father of the United States, chemist and physician (born 1746)
* April 27 – General Zebulon Pike, American explorer (born 1779)
* May – Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger, German zoologist (born 1775)
* July 22 – George Shaw, English naturalist (born 1751)
* August 23 – Alexander Wilson, Scottish American ornithologist (born 1766)
