1746 in science

The year 1746 in science and technology involved some significant events.

Chemistry

John Roebuck invents the lead-chamber process for the manufacture of sulfuric acid.
German chemist Andreas Sigismund Marggraf (1709Ã¢ÂÂ1782) is credited with describing zinc as a separate metal.
Eva Ekeblad discovers how to make flour and alcohol out of potatoes.

Jean le Rond d'Alembert develops the theory of complex numbers.
Patrick d'Arcy announces discovery of the principle of angular momentum in a form known as "the principle of areas" (areal velocity).
Scottish mathematician Matthew Stewart publishes Some General Theorems of Considerable use in the Higher Parts of Mathematics, including an account of Stewart's theorem on the measurement of the triangle.

Pierre Louis Maupertuis reads before the Berlin Science Academy the paper Recherche des Lois du Mouvement. He claims that nature acts in such a way as to minimize the product of mass times velocity times distance, in an incomplete but seminal idea that derives in what is known today as the Principle of least action.

Pierre Bouguer publishes a treatise on naval architecture, TraitÃÂ© du navire, which first explains use of the metacentric height as a measure of ships' stability.
John Muller publishes A Treatise Containing the Elementary Part of Fortification.

January 4 Ã¢ÂÂ Benjamin Rush, Founding Father of the United States, chemist and physician (died 1813)
March 15 Ã¢ÂÂ Giovanni Battista Venturi, Italian physicist after whom the Venturi tube is named (died 1822)
May 9 Ã¢ÂÂ Gaspard Monge, French mathematician and geometer (died 1818)
July 16 Ã¢ÂÂ Giuseppe Piazzi, Italian Theatine monk, astronomer and mathematician (died 1826)
July 30 Ã¢ÂÂ Louise du Pierry, French astronomer (died 1807)
Isaac Swainson, English botanist (died 1812)