See also: 1850 in science, other events of 1851, 1852 in science, list of years in science
Awards Copley Medal: Richard Owen Wollaston Medal for geology: Adam Sedgwick Births Deaths January 27 - John James Audubon, naturalist and illustrator (born 1785) February 18 - Carl Gustav Jakob Jacobi, mathematician (* 1804) March 9 - Hans Christian Orsted, physicist (* 1777)