See also: 1878 in science, other events of 1879, 1880 in science and the list of years in science.
Chemistry Per Teodor Cleve discovered the elements holmium and thulium Psychology Wilhelm Wundt creates the first laboratory of experimental psychology at the university of Leipzig. Awards Copley Medal: Rudolf Clausius Wollaston Medal: Bernhard Studer Births March 8 - Otto Hahn, German physicist who received the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry (died 1968) May 28 - Milutin Milankovic, geophysicist (died 1958) Deaths November 5 - James Clerk Maxwell, mathematician and physicist (* 1831) Peter Kozler, geographer and cartographer (* 1824)