The year 1666 in science and technology involved some significant events.
Events December 22 – French Academy of Sciences first meets.
Astronomy Publication of Stanisław Lubieniecki's Theatrum Cometicum begins in Amsterdam, the first encyclopedia and atlas of comets.
Botany Establishment of Herrenhäuser Gärten, Hanover.
Mathematics Isaac Newton develops differential calculus. Samuel Morland produces several designs of pocket calculating machine and also publishes A New Method of Cryptography.
Physics Isaac Newton uses a prism to split sunlight into the component colours of the optical spectrum, assisting understanding of the nature of light. Robert Hooke and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli both expound gravitation as an attractive force (Hooke's lecture "On gravity" at the Royal Society of London on March 21; Borelli's Theoricae Mediceorum planetarum ex causis physicis deductae, published in Florence later in the year).
Publications Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne, publishes Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, including an attack on Robert Hooke's Micrographia.
Births December – Stephen Gray, English scientist (died 1736)
Deaths Giovanni Battista Baliani, Genoese physicist (born 1582) Song Yingxing, Chinese encyclopedist (born 1587)
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