1606 in science
# 1606 in science

The year 1606 in science and technology involved some significant events.

## Cryptography

* The cryptographic text Steganographia, written by Johannes Trithemius c.1499/1500, is published in Frankfurt.

## Exploration

* February 26
   * Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon makes the first confirmed sighting of Australia by a European.
   * Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the Pitcairn Islands.
* March – The Dutch ship Duyfken, under Captain Willem Janszoon, explores the western coast of Cape York Peninsula.
* May – Pedro Fernandes de Queirós discovers the islands of Vanuatu; believing them to be Australia, he names them La Austrialia del Espiritu Santo.
* October – Luís Vaz de Torres is the first European to sail through the Torres Strait.

## Mathematics

* Giovanni Antonio Magini devises trigonometric tables of high accuracy.

## Physics

* Approx. date – Galileo invents a thermometer based on the expansion of gas.

## Technology

* The first recorded instance of a bayonet published in the Chinese military treatise Binglu [zh].

## Births

* January 4 (bapt.) – Edmund Castell, English orientalist (died 1685)

## Deaths

* September 28 – Nicolaus Taurellus, German philosopher and scientist (born 1547)
* November 13 – Girolamo Mercuriale, Italian physician and historian (born 1530)
* Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, Dutch nautical chart maker (born 1533/4)
