1849 in science

The year 1849 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed here.

Astronomy

• Édouard Roche finds the limiting radius of tidal destruction and tidal creation for a body held together only by its self gravity, called the Roche limit, and uses it to explain why Saturn's rings do not condense into a satellite

Biology

• Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species.

Mathematics

• George Gabriel Stokes shows that solitary waves can arise from a combination of periodic waves

Physics

• Hippolyte Fizeau and Léon Foucault measure the speed of light to be about 298,000 km/s

Awards

• Copley Medal: Roderick Murchison
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Joseph Prestwich

Births

• April 25 – Felix Klein (d. 1925), German mathematician.
• October 26 – Ferdinand Georg Frobenius (d. 1917), German mathematician.

Deaths

• December 12 – Marc Isambard Brunel (b. 1769), engineer.