1618 in science

Astronomy

• March 8 – May 15 – Johannes Kepler formulates the third law of planetary motion.
• July 21 – Pluto (not known at this time) reaches an aphelion. It next comes to aphelion in 1866.
• Johann Baptist Cysat, Swiss Jesuit geometer and astronomer and one of Christoph Scheiner's pupils, becomes the first to study a comet through the telescope and gives the first description of the nucleus and coma of a comet.
• September 6–25 – The Great Comet of 1618 is visible to the naked eye. James I described it as "Venus with a firebrand in her arse".

Biology

• Fortunio Liceti's De spontaneo Viventium Ortu supports the theory of spontaneous generation of organisms.

Medicine

• The College of Physicians of London publishes the Pharmacopœia Londinensis.

Births

• April 2 – Francesco Maria Grimaldi, Italian physicist, discoverer of the diffraction of light (died 1663)
• Jeremiah Horrocks, English astronomer (died 1641)

Deaths

• June 6 – Sir James Lancaster, English navigator (born 1554)
• October 29 – Walter Ralegh, English explorer (born c. 1554)
• Luca Valerio, Italian mathematician (born 1553)

References

References

1. Miller, Arthur I.. (2009). "Deciphering the cosmic number: the strange friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung". W. W. Norton & Co..
2. (2016). "The Nine Lives of John Ogilby". Duckworth.
3. Medicorum Collegij Londinensis. (August 28, 2004). "Pharmacopœia Londinensis in qua medicamenta antiqua et nova vsitatissima, sedulò collecta, accuratissimè examinata, quotidiana experientia confirmata describuntur. Opera Medicorum Collegij Londinensis. Ex serenissimi Regis mandato cum R.M. Priuilegio". Printed by Edwardus Griffin for Iohannis Marriot}} ''See:'' {{cite journal.