1682 in science

The year 1682 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Astronomy

* A comet is observed, which later becomes known as Comet Halley, after Edmund Halley successfully predicts its return in 1758.

Discoveries

* Antony Van Leeuwenhoek discovered the banded pattern of muscle fibers.

Botany

* John Ray publishes his "Methodus plantarum nova", which sets out his system to divide flowering plants into monocotyledons and dicotyledons.

Exploration

* René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle canoes down the Mississippi River, naming the Mississippi basin Louisiana in honour of Louis XIV.

Births

* July 10 - Roger Cotes, English mathematician (died 1716)
* Giovanni Battista Morgagni, Italian anatomist (died 1771)

Deaths

* J. J. Becher (born 1635), German physician and chemist.
* Jean Picard (born 1620), French astronomer.