The year 1882 in science and technology included many events, some of which are listed here.

Inventions

Nikola Tesla conceives the ideas of the rotating magnetic field principle and the induction motor.

Awards

• Copley Medal: Arthur Cayley
• Wollaston Medal for Geology: Franz Ritter von Hauer

Births

• March 14 - Waclaw Sierpinski (d. 1969), Polish mathematician.
• September 30 - Johannes Hans Geiger (d. 1945), inventor of the Geiger counter.
• October 5 - Robert Goddard (d. 1945), American rocket scientist.
• December 11 - Max Born (d. 1970), physicist and recipient of the Nobel Prize in physics in 1954.
• December 28 - Arthur Eddington (d. 1944), astrophysicist.

Deaths

• January 11 - Theodor Schwann (b. 1810), physiologist.
• April 19 - Charles Darwin (b. 1809), geologist and naturalist.
• September 23 - Friedrich Woehler (b. 1800), chemist.
• November 20 - Henry Draper (b. 1837), doctor, astronomer.