List of years in science (Table)
… 1840 • 1841 • 1842 • 1843 • 1844 • 1845 • 1846 •    1847 • 1848 • 1849 – 1850 – 1851 • 1852 • 1853 •    1854 • 1855 • 1856 • 1857 • 1858 • 1859 • 1860 …
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… 1847 • 1848 • 1849 – 1850 – 1851 • 1852 • 1853 … … 1820s • 1830s • 1840s – 1850s – 1860s • 1870s • 1880s … … 18th century – 19th century – 20th century …
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The year 1850 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Physics

• Rudolf Clausius publishes his paper on the mechanical theory of heat, which first states the basic ideas of the second law of thermodynamics.
• Hippolyte Fizeau and E. Gounelle measure the speed of electricity.
• Léon Foucault demonstrates the greater speed of light in air than in water, and to establish that the speed of light in different media is inversely as the refractive indices of the media (see Fizeau-Foucault Apparatus).

Awards

• Copley Medal: Peter Andreas Hansen
• Wollaston Medal: William Hopkins

Births

• January 15 - Sofia Kovalevskaya (d. 1891), mathematician.
• May 18 - Oliver Heaviside (d. 1925), physicist.
• June 6 - Karl Ferdinand Braun (d. 1918), physicist.
• August 25 - Charles Robert Richet (d. 1935), Nobel Prize winner.

Deaths

• March 27 - Wilhelm Beer (b. 1797), astronomer.
• May 10 - Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac (b. 1778), chemist and physicist.