1912 in science

The year 1912 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.

Archaeology

• December 6 – The
  German Oriental Company (Deutsche Orient-Gesellschaft – DOG), led by German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt
  .

• At the beginning of this year an extreme decadal variation in
  length of day produces mean solar days having a duration of 86400.00389 seconds of Terrestrial Time (or ephemeris time), the slowest rotation of Earth's crust ever to be recorded.^[1]

• July 23 –
  Anergates atratulus in the New Forest
  , England.
• Reginald Punnett is appointed as first Arthur Balfour Professor of Genetics in the University of Cambridge (U.K.), probably the oldest chair of genetics in the English-speaking world.

Chemistry

• Peter Debye derives the T-cubed law for the low temperature heat capacity of a nonmetallic solid.
• Casimir Funk introduces the concept of vitamins.^[2]
• canal rays (positive ions).^[3][4]
• catalyst^[5]
  although it is not successfully commercialized at this time.
• Wilbur Scoville devises the Scoville scale for measuring the heat of peppers.
• December 24 –
  entactogenic drug MDMA, developed by Anton Köllisch.^[6][7][8]

• January – Alfred Wegener proposes a fully formulated theory of continental drift and gives the supercontinent Pangaea its name.^[9][10]
• June 6 – The
  VEI
  6 eruption, the largest this century.

Exploration

• January 17 – British polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott and a team of four reach the South Pole to find that Amundsen has beaten them to it. They will die on the return journey, just eleven miles from a polar base (March 16–29).^[11]
• March 7 – Roald Amundsen announces in Hobart that his expedition reached the South Pole on last December 14.

History of science

• November 20 – History of Medicine Society holds its first meeting, under the chairmanship of Sir William Osler, in London.
• Georgius Agricola's De re metallica (1556) is first published in an English translation, made by Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover, in London.
• Voynich manuscript discovered.

Mathematics

• Publication of the 2nd volume of Principia Mathematica by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, one of the most important and seminal works in mathematical logic and philosophy.
• Karl F. Sundman solves the n-body problem for n=3.

Medicine

• Harvey Cushing identifies Cushing's disease, caused by a malfunction of the pituitary gland.
• Solomon Carter Fuller first names Alzheimer's disease.
• Hakaru Hashimoto first describes the symptoms of Hashimoto's thyroiditis.^[12]

Metallurgy

• Krupp engineers Benno Strauss and Eduard Maurer patent austenitic stainless steel (October 17)^[13] and Elwood Haynes (in the United States) and Harry Brearley (of Brown-Firth in Sheffield, England) independently discover martensitic stainless steel alloys.^[14][15]

Meteorology

• April 5 – Milutin Milanković's Contribution to the mathematical theory of climate, his first work in this field, is published in Belgrade.

Paleontology

• December 18 – Skull of "Piltdown Man" presented to the Geological Society of London as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown form of early human. It is revealed to be a hoax in 1953.^[11]

Physics

• November 11 –
  crystal lattice.^[16]
• X-rays
  .
• zinc blende
  .
• cosmic radiation
  .

• Carl Jung publishes Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (Psychology of the Unconscious), based on lectures delivered at Fordham University and precipitating a break with Sigmund Freud.
• Sabina Spielrein delivers her paper on "Destruction as the Cause of Coming Into Being" to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society.

Technology

• April 14–15 – Sinking of the Titanic: The ocean liner RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks on her maiden voyage from the United Kingdom to the United States.^[11][17]
• The British
  analogue computer.^[18]
• The Sperry Corporation develops the first gyroscopic autopilot ("gyroscopic stabilizer apparatus") for aviation use.
• The earth inductor compass is first patented by Donald M. Bliss.

Other events

• American ornithologist Robert Ridgway publishes Color Standards and Color Nomenclature.
• Conférence internationale de l'heure radiotélégraphique.
• First International Congress of Eugenics held in London with the support of Leonard Darwin, Winston Churchill, Auguste Forel, Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Davenport and other prominent scientists.^[19]

Awards

• Nobel Prize
  • Physics – Gustaf Dalén^[20]
  • Chemistry – Victor Grignard; Paul Sabatier
  • Medicine – Alexis Carrel

Births

• January 21 – Konrad Emil Bloch (died 2000), German-born biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• January 27 –
  aeronautical engineer
  .
• January 30 – Werner Hartmann (died 1988), German physicist.
• February 13 –
  nuclear physicist
  .
• February 25 –
  virologist
  .
• March 1 – Boris Chertok (died 2011), Russian rocket designer.
• March 19 –
  immunologist
  .
• March 23 – Wernher von Braun (died 1977), German-born physicist and engineer.
• April 19 – Glenn T. Seaborg (died 1999), American physical chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• May 22 – Herbert C. Brown (died 2004), English-born chemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
• May 28 – Ruby Payne-Scott (died 1981), Australian radioastronomer.
• May 30 – Julius Axelrod (died 2004), American biochemist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• May 31 – Chien-Shiung Wu (died 1997), Chinese-American nuclear physicist, winner of the Wolf Prize in Physics.
• June 23 – Alan Turing (died 1954), English computer scientist.^[21]
• June 30 – Ludwig Bölkow (died 2003), German aeronautical engineer.
• August 11 – Norman Levinson (died 1975), American mathematician.
• August 13 – Salvador Luria (died 1991), Italian-born biologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• August 30 – Edward Mills Purcell (died 1997), American physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.^[22]
• September 7 –
  electronics engineer.^[23]
• September 22 – Herbert Mataré (died 2011), German physicist.
• October 1 – Kathleen Ollerenshaw (died 2014), English mathematician.
• November 14 – Tung-Yen Lin (died 2003), Chinese-born civil engineer.
• November 19 – George Emil Palade (died 2008), Romanian-born microbiologist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
• November 22 – Paul Zamecnik (died 2009), American scientist playing a central role in the early history of molecular biology.

Deaths

• February 10 – Joseph Lister (born 1827), English inventor of antiseptic.
• February 12 – Osborne Reynolds (born 1842), British physicist.
• March 19 – Thomas Harrison Montgomery Jr. (born 1873), American zoologist and cell biologist.
• March 28 – Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran (born 1838), French chemist.
• March 29
  • Robert Falcon Scott (born 1868), English Antarctic explorer.
  • naturalist
    .
• April 18 – Martha Ripley (born 1843), American physician.^[24]
• May 4 – Nettie Stevens (born 1861), American geneticist.
• May 30 –
  Wilbur Wright
  (born 1867), American aviation pioneer.
• July 17 – Henri Poincaré (born 1854), French mathematician.
• August 7 – François-Alphonse Forel (born 1841), Swiss pioneer of limnology.
• November 23 –
  telegraph
  engineer.
• December 17 – Spiru Haret (born 1851), Romanian mathematician, astronomer and politician.
• December 21 – Paul Gordan (born 1837), German Jewish mathematician, "the king of invariant theory".

References