1660 in science

Events

• November 28 – At Gresham College in London, twelve men, including Christopher Wren, Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, and Robert Moray, meet after a lecture by Wren and resolve to found "a College for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning", which will become the Royal Society.

  Botany

• John Ray publishes Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium in Cambridge, the first flora of an English county.

  Mathematics

• The popular English-language edition by Isaac Barrow of Euclid's Elements is published in London.

  Physics

• Robert Boyle publishes New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and its Effects.

  Births

• February 19 – Friedrich Hoffmann, German physician and chemist
• April 16 – Hans Sloane, Ulster Scots-born collector and physician
• March 15 – Olof Rudbeck the Younger, Swedish naturalist
• May 27 – Francis Hauksbee, English scientific instrument maker and experimentalist
• approx. date – Edward Lhuyd, Welsh naturalist
• Date unknown – Jeanne Dumée, French astronomer

  Deaths

• May 29 – Frans van Schooten, Dutch Cartesian mathematician
• June 30 – William Oughtred, English mathematician who invented the slide rule
• Jean-Jacques Chifflet, French physician and antiquary
• Walter Rumsey, Welsh judge and amateur scientist