The year 1583 in science and technology included a number of events, some of which are listed here.

Botany

• Carolus Clusius publishes Rariorum stirpium per Pannonias observatorum Historiae, the earliest book on Alpine flora.^[1]

Mathematics

• Thomas Fincke's Geometria rotundi is published, introducing the terms tangent and secant for trigonometric functions.
• Johann Thomas Freigius' Quaestiones geometricae et stereometricae Euclidis is published in Basel following his death (January 16) from plague.

Physiology and medicine

• Georg Bartisch's Ophthalmodouleia, Das ist Augendienst is published in Dresden, the first modern work on ophthalmology.

Births

• February 23 – Jean-Baptiste Morin, French mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer (died 1656)

Deaths

• December 31 – Thomas Erastus, Swiss physician and theologian (born 1524)